


The Cracked Mirror

by Frin



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Blah Blah Blah..., F/M, Humour, Romance, Sexy Times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-12 13:57:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 34
Words: 41,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2112540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frin/pseuds/Frin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She left him and went with her Time Lord. How would he live the one true adventure now?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _Very short chapters as it builds, but I will update daily!_

When the TARDIS doors creaked shut he had felt like running. Either towards or away from them, it didn’t matter at that point. He had told her he loved her and she had still left with the other. She saw him as a worthless copy and was prepared to give up everything, her mother, her brother even her newfound father and all the bounteous extras that came with him.

That was Rose Tyler though, he knew that her loyalty was to the Time Lord and for this he could only applaud her bravery and her honesty. She had said how sorry she was as she took the other’s hand and headed with Donna into his beloved ship.

Jackie Tyler’s face was a picture. She knew that she should have been supporting him and she really tried, but it was he who broke down the barriers and took her in his arms to comfort her, a mother who had lost her daughter… forever.

As they weathered the storm and trudged through the sand to the nearest settlement, he clutched the little pulsating coral in his deep, deep pocket and wept inside for the cruelty of the universe. Maybe this universe would be better for him. At least he didn’t have an eternity of loneliness ahead of him, just the odd sixty years or so if he was lucky. Lucky?

He stayed with Jackie and Pete for a while, got to know Tony and got to know himself. Jackie and he had their losses in common and at first that was comfort, but after a while he could take the pitying looks no more and asked Pete to help him look for somewhere in the city.

At first Pete had been reluctant to let him have Rose’s old flat, but the laboratory that Rose had had built for the many experiments she had supervised was too much of a pull and all Rose’s personal things were tactfully stored away in the tiny loft-space before he moved in.

There had been much discussion and Jackie had got upset all over again, but she had no right to emotionally blackmail him to stay however much it kept some kind of link with Rose and their old universe.

He went through the motions of living a life. He worked, mostly for Torchwood, but with a little freelancing here and there. He made friends… not real friends that you could tell anything to… not the kind that could sweep the loneliness away. But people who liked him. Females seemed to like him a lot, but he had no interest, it was almost that he was only half alive. In becoming two he had become less, or so he thought.

And so a year or so went by as he worked and ate and slept his life away. If his other half could have seen him, he might have accused him of wasting it away but for one thing. The little coral grew and throbbed and developed and he poured everything he had into nurturing her into something spectacular. He did this because this was all he really knew and all he could develop any real passion for.

*********

That morning, it was a bleak October morning and he was wandering through a food market inhaling the mixed odours of fish and rotting flowers from the previous day. You could hardly say it wasn’t an out of the ordinary morning, not when he was in pursuit of a particularly nasty alien that needed to be contained before it caused a fatality.

“Oi!” He was shaken from his thoughts by the sound of a voice and he spied his searched for creature grappling with a figure much smaller than he. They seemed to be fighting over a pineapple. A pineapple, for goodness sake?

He ran as fast as he could towards them, fear of the creature’s secreted talons making their appearance filling him and then suddenly, the creature doubled over and fell to its knees as the figure kneed it in the groin.

He reached the pair as the creature hit the floor, groaning. It was clutching its crotch but at the same time it was muttering its signals for help. Danger was all about them and he had to act fast. But he was transfixed by the little figure in front of him.

The woman turned to him with an angry glare, “mate of yours?” she barked. She wore a flat cap that she had tucked her hair into and an apron that denoted that she was the stall keeper of the fruit and veg stall that his creature had been trying to help itself from. Other than that, it was undoubtedly the very same face that had haunted him for the past three or four years.

“Rose?” he gasped, his voice cracking as he looked at her in utter panic and confusion.


	2. Chapter 2

“Rose?” he said it again just because he hadn’t in so long and she seemed not to have realised he was talking to her. She turned back to him after observing the irate creature that was getting back to its feet.

“Listen, mate, I don’t know who you think you are, but now don’t seem like the time for introductions… he’s got friends…” The Doctor turned to see three more Quayines approaching them and his basic instincts jump started. 

His arm leaned out to her of its own accord and he pulled her hand into his. That old familiar word tumbled from his mouth. “Run!” She needed no more prompting than that and they took off at speed before the Quayines could react to their movements.

They ran down the quiet, early morning backstreets until they were out of breath, then he pulled her into an alley and poked his head back up the street to see if they had followed.

“We lost them…” he panted, turning back to her, his breath coming short but the smile on his face clearly undeniable. It soon dropped.

“Could have got us ruddy killed… what do you mean by leading ‘em right to me?” She snatched her hand from his and glared at him with open hostility.

“I… what… Rose?”

“And you can stop calling me bleeding Rose an’ all… I don’t know you, but I do know you put us in great danger!”

It clearly was her, it was plain to see. A few years older, yes, and now they were out in the light of day he could see the wisps of brown hair escaping her cap. How could it come to this?

“Rose Tyler…” It was the only thing he could think of to say and it didn’t go down at all well.

“Nah… I think you got it wrong, mate… that ain’t me.” With that, she turned heel and began to walk quickly away from him. He watched her go for a while, his mind reeling at their exchange albeit somewhat one sided and then, quickly, before she was out of sight, he followed her at an equally fast pace.

He was good at this sort of thing; could make himself pretty near invisible and as he followed he pondered on what circumstances had bought her to this.

Doppelganger? No, there was no such thing, not coincidentally anyway. Clone? Why would someone go to those lengths?

His mind spun and an image of a little Yorkshire terrier kept nipping at his thoughts.

Something clearly wasn’t right; nobody had an almost identical twin without there being some kind of circumstance. His curiosity was more then piqued and he was adamant that he was going to get to the bottom of it.

She looked back a couple of times, but he was secure in the knowledge that he wasn’t detected.

Eventually, she made her way to a built up residential area and stopped at an old Georgian house that had clearly been developed into flats. She pulled a key from her pocket and closed the door firmly behind her with a resounding bang.

He stood across the street and watched as the third floor light flickered on. Her face haunted him, the blank look in her eye clearly showing that she didn’t know him. But those eyes, they were her eyes, the upturned nose, the full mouth. Even her smell, he could still smell her now. There was only one person who smelled like that.

He was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice her catch sight of him from the window, didn’t see her reemerge from the front door and cross over to him. It was only when she spoke that he realised he had been caught.

“You a stalker?” her voice hissed out at him, clearly, she didn’t want to draw attention to herself.

“I… no… I’m sorry, I just… look it isn’t every day that you get accosted by an alien for a pineapple is it? You seemed so unperturbed by it.”

“Aliens bloody everywhere these days… wish they’d do something about it. It’s been getting steadily worse. What did you expect... hysterics?” She smiled then, just quickly and he saw Rose standing in front of him. He relaxed a little.

“I work for one of the departments that are trying to ‘do something’ about all these aliens.”

“Yeah, I figured that much… Torchwood, is it? Bit of a hash job if you ask me… always work alone, do ya?” He noted there was distinct lilt to her accent, like she had spent a large proportion of her childhood somewhere else. A mild Irish accent maybe? “Asked you a question… you gonna answer or just stand there gawping at me?” Welsh, that was it, at some point she had lived for quite a while in Wales.

“Look… I’m sorry… you remind me of someone I used to know, it’s thrown me somewhat…”

“Yeah? Don’t tell me, her name was Rose?” 

“Yeah…” She observed him as if weighing him up for a moment.

“You can buy me coffee to get me over the shock... if you want…” She grinned a full Tyleresque grin complete with the tip of her tongue and it floored him. He squeaked an affirmative response and she began to walk him back towards the high street he had followed her down.


	3. Chapter 3

The café was old fashioned, the steamed up windows and the strong smell of bacon announcing its offerings to all who passed. 

They slipped into a semi-booth and sat opposite each other. “Coffee, you said?” 

“Actually… you know, I could murder a cuppa tea. Doesn’t sound quite as sophisticated as a coffee, though, does it?”

“And why would you want to seem sophisticated around me?” The waitress arrived at their table before she could answer, but he derived a little thrill in seeing her flush a charming shade of pink. “A large pot of tea and selection of pastries, please?”

“Got lardy, custard slice and bread 'n butter pud, ain’t got any French stuff…” replied the waitress with a sniff.

“I’m sure whatever you can offer on a plate will suffice.” He cringed at himself inside, he didn’t want to sound like the pompous buffoon that he was, but the nerves were getting to him. The waitress eyed him suspiciously over her pad and then left them to it.

“Don’t think you quite got that right, did ya? You ain’t from around here are you?”

“No… you’d be right on that score, but I seem to pick up the hint of a little red dragon in your accent, so, people in glass houses...”

“I was born round here though… just that I lived up there for a while… what you after, me life story? Don’t even know your name.”

“Nor I yours.”

“Marion.”

“Like the fair Maid?”

“What you on about?” she shook her head and clicked her tongue as if chiding a small child.

“Marion, tell me, when I first saw you, you were wrestling with a Quayine… you were furious with me for leading it to you… I need to know what you know.”

“I’m afraid, that I can’t tell you. Like I said, you’re a perfect stranger… what do I call you?”

“Oh, I’m… I’m the Doctor…” 

She stared at him, blinking furiously and then nodded, leaned forward, tapped the side of her nose in a show of over-dramatising. “Yeah… the Doctor…” She looked from side to side and winked at him.

“Seriously, people really call me the Doctor.”

“Ah, see, they may call you that, but it ain’t really your name, is it?” He didn’t respond to this, but he thought her utterly brilliant as he always had. Or hadn’t, this was too confusing.

“So, do you make a habit of inviting perfect strangers for a sophisticated cup of coffee?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Only when they’re perfect…” she replied, but before he could respond the waitress arrived with their tray and he got involved in a discussion about Bakewell Tarts and proper English tea.

“S’hot in ‘ere…” she muttered, standing to remove her thick coat and flat cap. Her hair tumbled down to her shoulders and she sat back down, blowing her fringe out of her eyes. 

It wasn’t the same colour as his Rose’s. It was darker, a honey, toffee, caramel colour and it suited her. It was probably her natural colour and he felt his pulse quicken despite the circumstances.

“How old are you, Marion?” The words were out as he thought them and she gasped, choking on her tea in shock.

“Ain’t supposed to ask a lady her age, don’t they teach any manners where you come from? How old are you?” Why was everything always so complicated? These were simple basic getting to know you questions. A name... an age... and he would never ever have a straight answer.

“I’m thirty five,” he answered but too late, she cocked her head and shook it, disbelievingly.

“I’d have placed you nearer forty, but it don’t matter. I’m twenty nine, if you must know.” That made her older than Rose by four or five years depending on whether you included that year he misplaced. It was always a little grey after that.

“And you moved back from Wales fairly recently?”

“Yeah, that’s right… what is this, The Spanish Inquisition?”

“Moved down to sell fruit and veg at Borough Market?”

She observed him for a moment and then leaned forward. “Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies…” she whispered and there it was. The password for all departments, secret or not, that dealt with extra terrestrial threat. Whether she was Rose or not, she was doing something brilliant and he wasn’t letting her go, not until he found out.

“Why the invite then?”

“Purely social… liked the look of you… bit bold, but I _am_ twenty nine and there’s no way I could be more desperate than you with your ‘Rose…’ what was her name?”

“Tyler… Rose Tyler,” he said softly.

“Mmm... funny, that. Mine is Taylor...”

“Funny? I find that rather weird…”

“Ain’t so weird… Doctor… third most common name in the country after Smith and Jones… coincidental, maybe… what is weird is that my name is Marion Rose Taylor and I only use my first name formally. I really hate it… my friends, they call me Rose…”


	4. Chapter 4

His Adam’s apple hitched in his throat, but she didn’t seem to notice the intensity of the moment. She sipped her tea and watched him over the brim of her mug.

“And… does that mean… I can call you by that?”

“Well… it seems to me, that you can’t take me out and call me Marion, that would be awful… so yeah… call me Rose…”

“Take… you… out?”

“Friday night... course… unless you don’t want to?” 

“Oh no, I’d love to, it’s just I’m not used to... that is to say… well... you know?” He had become a stammering school boy at the mention of her name!

She leaned forward, grinning, her tongue poking the corner of her mouth. “Bit forward? Twenty-first century, mate. Besides, I’d bet money on you never asking if I never!” He sat back against his chair and smiled at her, a little nod being her only answer. “Righto… gotta get on… cheers for the tea and all that, but they’ll be sending out a search party if I don’t contact ‘em!” She stood up, adorning the flat cap and pulling on her coat.

“They?” She stopped and shook her head with a smile.

“If you’re gonna ask awkward questions, we might have to forget it and if you try and put anyone tailing me from your place, I can easily get mine to make me disappear!”

“No... I… sorry, naturally inquisitive… want to make sure you’re alright.”

“Funny bloke… old fashioned… laters then!” She walked away from him and he found his stomach in a knot, what if he never saw her again? She stopped at the door and turned back. “About 'alf seven?”

“Sorry?”

“You... pick… me... up... 'bout 'alf past seven, yeah?”

“Half seven…” he nodded. He only just managed to find his voice.

“Bye then… Doctor.”

“Good bye… Rose… Taylor...” The door slammed shut and he was left in the steamy, busy place contemplating the morning that he had had.

It made sense that there would be a Rose Tyler here. But if she was a Taylor then she wouldn’t, couldn’t be her. Mickey/Rickey had a few differences, but they had basically identical upbringings. Definitely the same gene pool.

So, if Jackie and Pete hadn’t had her, then… but this Jackie wasn’t originally from here, so she hadn’t. She had had her own. 

He stood up quickly, dropped some notes on the side plate and left at a brisk pace.

He was going to pay Peter Tyler a visit.

Half an hour later, he was in Pete’s office describing the girl that he had met a couple of hours earlier. Pete listened quietly until he had finished, although he had left out the flirting, the following her home and the fact that they were meeting later on.

“What are you saying, Doctor? You met a girl and she reminded you of Rose?”

“Pete, it was more than a reminder, she could have _been_ her!”

“But she wasn’t, was she? Listen, I understand how unhappy you’ve been and I sympathise, I really do… but to imagine that a girl who is similar might be... what… an alternative her, is ludicrous, Doctor!”

“I just thought… I really don’t know the ins and outs of your life before the Cybermen, Pete and I just… No., you’re right. I don’t really know what I expected you to say.”

“I miss her too… and Jackie… I don’t think there’s an hour in each day when her thoughts don’t go back to her. But we’ve got on with it. It’s what Rose would have wanted, Doctor. You have to get on with living. You have to make the best of the short life you have and stop seeping yourself in miserable loneliness!”

“Yes… look, I was hasty; I suppose I made an assumption I shouldn’t have.”

“Don’t bother yourself… I really don’t need to know any more than that. It’s Friday, we’ve isolated the rest of the Quayines. It looks like a quiet weekend. Why don’t you come down to the Mansion and stay? Jackie and Tony would love to see you...”

“I’ll think about it… I have... something planned tonight... but maybe I could come tomorrow? I’ll let you know.”

“Planned?”

“Yes… important work on the coral, can’t put it off, it’s critical.” Pete nodded but it was quite evident that he obviously didn’t believe him.

When he got back to his dock side apartment, he went straight to the laboratory where his not so little coral greeted him happily like a puppy that had been left all day. Not that she bounded up to him physically, no, this was a telepathic experience, but the Doctor behaved like a doting owner and fussed over her as if she were a pet or a small child.

“I’ve only been gone a few hours, you big silly!” he cooed as he poured a small amount of blue liquid into the bowl she sat in. “If only you were a bit bigger, then I might be able to ask you!”

After half an hour of tending to the coral, he left her and went to the bedroom, where he pulled open the huge oak wardrobe. His fingers journeyed across the fabrics there until they rested upon his suits. He picked up two of them and studied them at separate arms lengths.

After much consideration, he finally nodded his head and put one of them back. He rested the blue pin stripes carefully on the bed and moved to the bathroom.

Meanwhile, across town, under an old disused railway bridge, Pete Tyler waited. Eventually a thickset and serious looking man joined him.

“Mr, Tyler?”

“Thanks for meeting me at such short notice, Trevor, but I think we might have a trace…”


	5. Chapter 5

Seven thirty on the dot, he stood clean, shaved and coiffed in front of her door. His throat was tight and dry and he wasn’t sure if he would have the nerve to ring her bell when a voice interrupted his thoughts from above.

“Oi! You early? Bit keen!” He looked up and saw her leaning out of the third floor sash window, her face was flushed pink and she was wearing that trade mark grin that floored him every time.

“It’s seven thirty…” he called back up with uncertainty.

“Hang on, I’ll buzz you in!” He glanced at the list of names in front of him and only half focussed on the ‘M.Taylor. Flat 5a’ that seemed to dance in front of him.

There was a loud buzz and the front door clicked. With a huge intake of breath, he opened the door and walked inside. He took the steps steadily, feeling his strength grow with each one. He wanted this to happen. He didn’t care what Pete thought. He wanted to get on with this living thing and this Rose was the one he wanted to start it with. He was going to do everything he could to make it happen. She fell in love with him once before, so surely it could happen again? It must happen again.

Her door was open as he arrived on the top landing and she called out from deep inside.

“Door’s open; help yourself to a drink, just finishing my hair…”

The flat was tiny and it felt like the walls were closing in. He surveyed the boxes strewn about him and realised that she really hadn’t been here long enough to even unpack properly. He perched on a tiny sofa and waited quietly, listening to her getting ready in the next room.

“Sorry ‘bout that… I’m a terrible time keeper, lost track, you’ll have to keep me in place being as you seem so prompt? Did you get a drink, there’s wine in the fridge?” She breezed into the room bringing the wafting scents of fresh Rose with her. He, again, basked in that scent, recognising it and wanting to bury his face in her newly washed hair. He gasped as she wandered past him. Her hair was swept off her neck, a few tendrilled wisps escaping here and there. Her neck was naked, as were her arms and shoulders. She wore a figure hugging semi-short black strapless dress and sheer black tights. She moved to a mirror leaning on the mantel and picked up a small silver hooped ear ring. As she put it in her ear she eyed his reflection. “What’s the matter… cat got your tongue?”

“I… er... no… you look… beautiful…” She snorted by way of reaction and turned giving him the benefit of another big smile as if in fact she were the cat who had the cream.

“I’ll do... you look great, very punky with maybe a bit of rockabilly thrown in?”

“Thanks… I think.”

“Yeah, it’s a great look… you want to get going, we don’t want to waste the night?” She stepped into a pair of strappy black heels and walked right up to him. “Will I do?” she fished. Her nose was now level with his mouth and he desperately resisted the urge to draw her close and snog the living daylights out of her.

He squeaked a response, coughed and nodded. She needed no more than this and slinging on a little black jacket that he felt sure wasn’t warm enough for the cold evening air, she took his hand and led him out of the building.

As they walked down the road towards the main street, she shivered beside him.

“Cold, Rose Taylor?”

“Blinking freezing… what shall we do, catch a bus up town and see what’s what?”

“Oh no, I took the liberty, got a table booked and a car waiting, that all right?” He had stopped them right by a sleek black car, the driver waiting patiently in the warmth of the plush interior.

“Is this Torchwood?” She let go of his hand and looked a little angry, a panic began to rise like bile in his throat.

“No… no… I booked this myself and I'm paying for it out of my own earnings… I wanted this night to be… right.” The frown was wiped from her face and she took his arm in hers reassuringly.

“Blimey, you _are_ keen!”

She soon warmed up in the private interior of the black hired car and smiled sideways at him. “Sorry about overacting, I didn’t want to mix business with pleasure and I sort of jumped to conclusions…”

“Well, it’s understandable and I’m glad to hear that I’m your pleasure and not your business…” His confidence seemed to be growing now that he had taken some control of the evening.

“Well, I think I'd quite like to make you my business too," she muttered softly, then shook herself and continued, "Okay, food first, but then I’m taking you dancing… you can dance, right?” She seemed to be enjoying the way in which the conversation was being lead and he stepped up to the mark.

“Oh yes, I’ve been known to shake a leg in my time!” he replied with a grin and a wink.

They had had a wonderful meal at a modest but ambient little place that the Doctor had visited a few times and knew fairly well.

He was pleasantly surprised when Rose struck up a competent conversation in French with the waiter and discussed the menu fluently.

“Lived for a few years in the Loire Valley…” she whispered with a wink. His insides somersaulted about and he hoped she couldn’t tell what hearing her French accent had done to him.

By the time they found the club, they were fairly drunk. It was an eighties revival night and they both found the music familiar and the patrons of a similar, if not older, age so they were unembarrassed and uninhibited on the dance floor.

She gyrated her hips and wiggled her body and he met her measure for measure. Indeed, it was a mating dance to end all mating dances and when a slow record filled the speakers, they fell against each other in partial exhaustion and more than partial arousal.

“Ain’t never reacted to no one quite like this,” she murmured up into his face and he smiled down at her, happy to have her body close against his. “It’s like I’ve known you all me life…”

“Like we were made for each other…”

“Like I never want to let you out of my sight…”

There was a lot of drink talk that night, but it was her who led the dance most of the way. He could take his time; he didn’t want them to run before they could walk. Not if it jeopardised the future he wanted them to have together.

She shivered as they left the club and he draped his blue jacket around her shoulders and put an arm across them.

“So…” they both said together and laughed in sync.

“You go on…” he said with a smile.

“Where do we go from here… Doctor?”

“Well, an honourable man would take you home…”

“Yeah… whose home, though?” she said with a grin.

“Your own home… but as it happens, my place isn’t far… I mean, if you…” But his next words were drowned out by the screeching of tyres as a dark four by four pulled up beside them. 

Two burly figures leapt out of it and roughly grabbed her. To his horror and before he could react, she was bundled into the car, which took off at a tremendous pace, leaving him running fruitlessly after it shouting her name in its wake.


	6. Chapter 6

Jackie sat up on her elbows and listened, then she nudged the lump next to her and hissed, “Pete… there’s someone knocking… wake up!”

“What?” He jumped awake and sat bolt up. He listened to the knocking which had turned into a violent, heavy banging.

The banging got louder and louder, a hysterical, incoherent voice now joining it. Pete jumped out of bed, grabbed his dressing gown and took the stairs two at a time only to be stopped momentarily by Jackie shouting at him as she followed him to the landing.

“What if its burglars… you might get hurt?”

“Jackie, burglars seldom knock... don’t come down…”

“Let me in! You bastard, where is she… Pete Tyler, open up!” As he got into the hall, the screaming began to make sense and the owner of them was familiar.

“For goodness sake, Doctor… what’s the meaning of… umph…” As he opened the door, the wind was thumped from him as an irate bundle of part-human Time Lord launched himself at him and pinned him to the wall, his face was contorted with rage as his hands held his throat.

“Give her back to me!” he spat, but Pete couldn’t answer, the breath was restriction enough without trying to project words as well. “You just couldn’t let it be… had to interfere… I wasn’t allowed my own shot at happiness… I repeat… give... her… back… to… me…”

“Doctor… you’ll kill him… leave him!” Jackie stood on the steps, her face ashen, and the shock in her eyes clearly visible. He looked up at her, then back to Pete and realising what he was doing, he let go and Pete fell to his knees spluttering.

The Doctor stood his ground, the anger still very raw as he glared down at Pete.

“Pete… you just can’t... whatever it is… you can’t!” Words were hard for him to find such was his anger, his fear and his… devastation. Then a soft gentle hand upon his arm began the quelling of his inner storm and he looked down into the striking blue eyes of Jackie Tyler.

“Whatever’s happened, what’s the problem?” she asked quietly, and he visibly broke before her, his shoulders sagging and his breathing coming in great shattered gulps.

“Don’t worry about me here on the floor… only just got half strangled… my wife is more concerned about my attacker…” Pete was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall and the Doctor glared at him again, his fists clenching and unclenching.

“Where is she?”

“Who, Doctor?” Jackie’s voice was so quiet; it was almost as if she had been professionally trained in negotiation.

“Rose…” His voice cracked, and then his eyes darted back to her as he heard her own intake of breath.

“Rose?”

“For Christ’s sake, man… why would you do a thing like that?” Pete jumped to his feet and put a protective arm around his wife. “Not our Rose, Jacks… she isn’t her, Doctor!”

“Pete, what’s going on?” Jackie’s flood light eyes were upon him, and he looked desperately from one to the other.

“It’s a long story…” he began, and two pairs of questioning eyes were upon him and he knew that he had no choice but to begin it.

Sitting around the huge stripped oak kitchen table with tea going cold in front of them, they waited for Pete to begin.

“The Jackie and Pete we were when we were younger were very different from the people we are now… in your case, literally… little differences, but some of them much more magnified. I was head-strong, wanted to make something of myself and I loved her, right from when she was in fifth form, I loved her. She had this knack of not believing in me, though… and we argued. A lot. She wanted to leave school, wanted me to get a proper job, and wanted us to get married, a nice new flat on the Powell Estate and a family. That was her ideal. It wasn’t mine. I was older, I suppose, stayed in my ways and I knew what I was aiming for. We separated just after she left school. I didn’t know, honest… I didn’t…” He stopped, took another swig of his tea and looked from one to the other. “It was a few years later that we met again… she was twenty and I was nearing my thirties... I was a success and she was changed. It was a different relationship, less naïve, but the feelings were still there. I suppose we'd been back together a few weeks when something began to nag at me. She was a little caged, secretive. Her family weren’t happy about me and I was pretty successful by then and that didn’t make sense. So… one night she broke down and she admitted it to me…” Pete paused, looked desperately at the Doctor and then back to Jackie.

“Go on, Pete… what was Jackie’s secret?” the Doctor looked at him, fire still burning deep in his eyes.

“When we split up, she was pregnant. She never told me… her mother was tough on her, wouldn’t hear of her keeping the baby. Even in the early eighties, this happened.”

“What happened?” Jackie’s voice was low, but there was no mistaking the underlying depths of the seriousness of her tone and Pete looked genuinely scared.

“I didn’t tell you because you bought Rose with you… she made it alright… do you see? You made it alright and … so did she…”

“Pete…”

“They made her give our baby girl up for adoption…” He said the words really quickly and equally quietly. There was a stunned silence.

“No… no… I wouldn’t… Mum wouldn’t!” Jackie began to ramble, her head flashing with emotion that she couldn’t quite translate.

“She would, Jackie… you know it. It’s one of the reasons we have nothing to do with what’s left of your family.”

“What did you do?” The Doctor’s voice cut through again.

“We searched for her, our three year old daughter. She had been adopted by a nice couple, older than us. They were desperate for a kid. The adoption agency were wonderful, did everything to mentor the contact.”

“Did you meet with her?” Jackie’s voice asked in a monotone.

“Couldn’t… it turned out that our child… had been… abducted from her adoptive parents just a few months after they got her. It had been all over the papers at the time… they even apparently called on Jackie, although she didn’t know what it was regarding. Her photos were everywhere, all over the papers… but we never knew… we never knew…”

“So... what happened?” asked Jackie, tears streaming down her face.

“Missing without a trace… presumed…” He stopped at this for a long moment. “Of course, when we found out, I opened up the search, got my top people on it. Searched for years. It put a wedge through me and Jackie that we never resolved. After everything that happened, in the Cyber war… you and Rose coming to me… I thought it was fate. It was our chance to live the life we should have had had it not been taken from us.”

There was silence in the kitchen as the three contemplated all that had been said.

“I don’t understand, though… why now, Doctor… what’s happened?” Jackie turned to him, confused.

“She’s turned up… I met her this morning. The Rose from this world. Oh, she doesn’t know it, but it _is_ her... I know it. He fobbed me off earlier. Said it was impossibility. You were covering your tracks… didn’t want the skeletons to get out of your closet!”

“I didn’t want to hope until there was proof... that’s all, Doctor. Imagine, you think the daughter you never met is long dead and then you forge a new life for yourself, one where only you know the truth. What would be in it to let it all out? I wanted to know, wanted to see… “

“So you get some thugs to snatch her off the street… that’s your proof… that’s what you do?”

“You what?”

“Oh, don’t come the innocent with me, Pete… no more lies... no more covering up… where is she?”

“Doctor, I swear to you… I admit that I got a trusted friend from way back to do some digging… find out all he could... the usual private eye stuff. But, so far as having her snatched is concerned, I wouldn’t. I didn’t!”

“But, if it wasn’t you… then who?”


	7. Chapter 7

Dawn was breaking as the Doctor got out of the taxi and wearily paid the driver. They had searched all night, used all the resources available to them, which were obviously a great deal considering their position in the world.

They had come up with very little; just the footage of Rose being dragged from the Doctor’s side and shoved into an unmarked car. The car drove around for a while until it must have parked up out of sight. Three or four similar vehicles left the same area and lost themselves in the traffic around Piccadilly.

Nothing. She seemed to have vanished into thin air. He and Pete had cruised for a while, asked a few of the people milling around if they had seen anything, which of course no one had.

They had been back to her tiny flat only to find that it had been ransacked, every box emptied and every breakable thing broken. And literally no trace, not one little sign of this new Rose.

It had been fruitless and the Doctor was on such unfamiliar territory with this. Once upon a time, he would have flicked a few switches on the console and he would have got at least something. Never had he felt more human than now. He was helpless. He was worried sick about Rose. He was completely bereft. Again.

His flat was the last place he wanted to be, but he had no other option. Pete was exhausted and very much in need of a long overdue talk with his wife who had been so quiet when they left that it could only be assumed she was in a state of shock. The search would begin again when they returned to Torchwood later on. 

He knew he wouldn’t stop until he found her.

He paused at his door, wondering how a stranger that he had known for just a few hours could have such an effect on him. Was he just clinging onto Rose Tyler? Had some connection been made between them? She certainly seemed to like him. 

He shook himself. It didn’t matter what there future held. She was in trouble and he was going to help her.

He pushed the door open and was instantly on the alert. There was someone there. The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and his hands became itchy with the anticipation of the unknown.

With a silent stealth he had learnt in his Academy days, he crept through the dark hallway without letting one single floorboard creak. He paused again at the living room door, glancing down at the chasm of light that came from the crack under it. It swung open, and he scanned the room, his eyes finally focusing on the figure curled up on his sofa.

The lamp above her was lit, and she was asleep under his blue jacket. 

Rose.

Relief seeped through him before questions and, as if she were suddenly aware of him, her eyes fluttered open and she looked sleepily up at him.

“Doctor… where have you been?” She yawned and sat up.

“Where have I been? Oh, Rose, I’ve been at my wits end… what happened... I mean, how... what’s going on?”

He dropped down heavily beside her, just missing her legs.

“You look awful… I’m so sorry… it was my people… got some silly idea in their heads that I needed removing from your presence Apparently they got it into their heads that you might not be… of this Earth…”

“You had us followed?”

“No! Sometimes, they just do anyway, particularly after the morning I had... I may have run some searches on you yesterday afternoon.”

“You may have? Have you any idea what I’ve been going through since you were dragged out of my arms?”

“You have no identity… what were they supposed to think?”

“You can talk! No one knows anything about you… we’ve contacted everyone... Home office… Unit... British Embassy… nothing, no one’s heard of you! We called by your flat… it’s a bomb site, was that your people too?”

“That has nothing to do with it… coincidence… someone else was looking for me an’ all, that’s why I come here…”

“And that’s another thing… how… I have no identity, you say. How did you know where I lived?”

“They followed you, I didn’t know until after they nabbed me. I came here pretty much straight away.”

“Why?”

“Wh…what do you mean… why?”

“Look, obviously you have a lot to hide… obviously there are things I cannot divulge. So, Rose Taylor, if that really is your name, why did you come here, break into my flat and wait for me?”

“Cos…” She flushed a little and looked uncomfortable.

“Cos?”

“I wanted to come back...”

“Sorry?”

“You invited me here.”

“You came here because I asked you to?”

“Yes…” She got up and paced away from him, wringing her hands together and pummelling her lip with her teeth. “Something clicked between us and I weren’t gonna let that slip away from me. Okay, you don’t know much about me… we’re strangers with secrets… but I’ve lost too much in my life to let someone as special as you…” Her words were cut short as he took the gap between them in one movement and captured her lips in a kiss that meant everything to him.

After a long moment, he pulled back, studied her face and stroked back a few escaped tendrils of hair. “Love at first sight?”

“It’s mad …” she whispered. “I’ve never settled, in my whole life… oh, I’ve had flings… you know? All my adult life, I’ve moved on… never committing to anything, never sure of who I was. Then you stutter into my life… thinking I’m someone else, treating me like I’m someone else and all I could think was how much I wanted to be that someone else. It’s so fast… I’m completely overwhelmed… you should have seen me rip into the boys… I don’t think they knew what hit them. I just wanted to go back to the moment before they barged in with their size elevens!”

“Rose… I’ve been in pieces…” he whispered, but he couldn’t put it in to anymore words. And he wouldn’t until he explained everything to her. Everything. How on Earth could he explain that he had been in pieces since the day he had come into existence… because of her? Indeed, there were many complications, many twists and turns regarding the pair of them and he didn’t know where to begin. Except.

Except, here she was in front of him. Rose Tyler/Taylor… what did it matter? It was her, right here telling him that she loved him against all odds and this time he wasn’t going to hide away from it.

“Don’t send me away… I don’t… want to go…” she whispered, reading the doubt in his face and misinterpreting it.

“No… no… I’d love you to stay. Oh, we have so much to sort out, Rose Taylor, because I am definitely not prepared to start this on a load of lies.”


	8. Chapter 8

“Lies?” Rose looked confused and a little shamefaced. He walked her back to the sofa and sat her down. Taking the space beside her, he grabbed both of her hands in his and faced her.

“You mentioned something about your team believing I was alien…”

“Yeah, but some of the equipment they use, it’s inherited from places that have thrown them out… we aren’t funded, see… the trackers often get it wrong…”

“Weeelll… here’s the thing… they weren’t exactly wrong this time…”

“What?”

“I’m part Human… part… alien…”

“Oh…”

“Only, its better we get it all out in the open, you know… I wouldn’t want to mislead you… is that alright?”

“I don’t think I have a choice…I mean you aren’t using some kind of alien mind trick on me, are you?”

“No… nothing like that… I just couldn’t pretend to be what I’m not.”

“I have to admit I am a little surprised… I mean, where are you from… was your father or your mother the alien… I mean, have you always lived here?” Her voice pitched highly as questions poured out of her.

“Slow down… look, Rose, all in good time… I mean absorb that first… honestly, it’s so unbelievably complicated it’ll make your head spin if I tell you all at once, besides, you might feel differently now that you know?”

“Feel differently? I’m not an alienist, Doctor... I mean, you’re still you, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I am… anyway, it’s your turn.”

“My turn?”

“Yep… I’ve told you one of my biggest secrets… now; I want to know… who are you Rose Taylor?”

“One of your biggest secrets? There’s something more than being alien?”

“Yes… but don’t change the subject… your turn.”

“I’m not used to this… I usually keep myself to myself…”

“Me too… new territory, but this has to be right… I’ve made too many mistakes in the past… I’m the expert at not saying it…” There was a long silence and then he continued.” What organisation do you work for?”

“It’s based in Cardiff… I mean it’s been around for years… it was founded to investigate activity from a rift that opened up at the end of the nineteenth century.”

“I thought that was Torchwood?”

“No… you’re mistaken… we’ve been very careful to stay out of Torchwood’s radar… I think my boss is afraid that we’d be taken over and swallowed up if they got their claws into us… no offence…”

“None taken… what’s it called?”

“Meddyg Pwy. It’s Welsh… we’re like a Scooby Doo gang more than government, you know… ‘who you gonna call’ and all that… and they do... in droves, we just keep our heads down and get on with it. We use any resources we can, usually stuff that we find that’s fallen out of the rift, and we recycle stuff too…”

“We… are there many of you?”

“Oh no, just a handful… I can’t give you names, you understand… I mean, I couldn’t let my team down…”

“You don’t have to… its you I’m interested in… how did they find you?”

“No… we’re taking it in turns… and I’ve just had mine…”

“Right… okay… my turn… right… you talk so freely of rifts, Rose, but do you know much about them?”

“Some… a bit… enough…”

“Would it surprise you to know that there are parallel worlds out there beyond the rift?”

“Parallel worlds?” she laughed a little nervously.

“Worlds running alongside each other, identical and yet different… some very different and some not so different…”

“What are you saying… that you’re from another dimension?” Rose laughed nervously again and then stilled at the serious look on his face.

“Yes, I am…”

“Oh…” Her face was a picture and he began to feel very tired. This was all too much. He had only just begun and she was looking almost scared of him. “Truthfully?”

“It’s too much for you to take in like this… you look done in. Shall we continue this tomorrow? Have you somewhere to go… I mean… your flat?”

“I have nowhere, look, no one knows I’m here… not even work… I’ve gone into hiding… let me stay here, just to lay low… there’s someone after me and if they find me, I doubt you’ll ever see me again… give me a few days and I’ll think of something… besides, I don’t want to let you out of my sight… coffee, you said… and I’m pretty sure that’s a euphemism, at least it is in my world…” Rose yawned as she spoke and that rather left her attempt at flirting flat.

“You don’t have to buy a bed with the promise of something more, Rose…”

“I’m not… Christ, I’m knackered… confused… trust me to fall for a half alien from another dimension… you’ll be telling me you’re a time traveller next…” But before he could respond to this, she leant against his shoulder and dozed off.

Very gently, he moved back, shifting his arm around her shoulders so that she slid into his armpit. He made himself comfortable, her head just below his chin. He breathed in her intoxicating scent and pondered on how he should relay his story.

She was Rose. She had to be, but did she know that? This adopted, abducted alien chaser.

If he told her the truth in the proper way, generically if you will, well generically to them then, he would have to spill about Pete and Jackie, he would have to tell her about Rose and how would she see that and if she didn’t know she was adopted and abducted, how would she take that? It was all too complicated and not only that, he had a feeling they had only reached the tip of the ice burg regarding her hidden self. Who was after her and why couldn’t she go to her team for help?

He couldn’t sleep as much as he needed to, thoughts spun around his head until it ached and it was the phone ringing that bought him to his senses. She didn’t seem to hear it and so he wriggled himself out from her and picked up the phone.

“Pete… yes… I’ll be in later… no… no… I don’t know… maybe I was wrong… mistaken, caught up in the moment… maybe she wasn’t Rose, just someone who looked like her. I have to gather my thoughts. No sign at all… all night… how is Jackie taking it... I’m so sorry… sometimes the truth is better out, you know? Even if this isn’t her… its better she knows… yes… I haven’t slept… that’s right… bye…” He clicked the receiver down and stared at the phone. It was too easy to lie to people.

“So, I’m not Rose?” Her voice made him jump and he swung around to the breathtaking vision of Rose just awake. Her hair was all ruffled and framed, a caramel haze around her face. Yesterday's black mascara was smudged around her eyes and her lips were full and puffy from sleep. His stomach bubbled, his chest restricted and his groin tightened at the sight of her. “Funny, I thought I was… but I’m not… what you mean is I’m not your Rose. I feel jealous of her and I don’t even know her. Where is she, Doctor, did you leave her on the other dimension?”

“Whatever you think you heard, I was covering… I didn’t want my… boss… to know you were here. You’re in hiding, right?”

“Oh, my god, you did, didn’t you? Left her in a parallel… is that what you do? Just leave people behind?”

“It was the other way around, if you must know, Rose… she left me here…”

“What… but… I don’t understand. Why would she do that?” Really, the look upon her face was pure confusion, but his last remark had obviously astounded her. He felt a pang of pride in that. She couldn’t fathom how anyone could leave him. He didn’t answer. How could he without it all becoming completely ridiculous?

Finally he broke their deadlock and spoke, actually making her jump. “Let’s get a cup of tea and continue… maybe we should start small and work our way up?”

She stood, her black dress all wrinkled and ridden up to almost indecency. “Yeah… like what?”

“Like… if your work is low key and Cardiff based, why were you in Borough Market yesterday morning?”

“Ah… that ain’t so small… I was just gonna ask you about your Rose…”

“Well, she isn’t mine…”

“You said she looked like me…”

“Yes…”

“Exactly like me?”

“Well… you’re very alike, yeah… hairs different though… hers was sort of … lighter…”

“Oh, she was blonde was she?”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Sorry, got a little inspired by Tangled!_

Pete Tyler was home again, after going in to the Wharf thinking that the Doctor might be in a state about his disappearing woman. He soon found out that he was more set on catching up on sleep. After checking all his messages and briefing his topmost team, he about-faced and went back to Jackie.

She sat at the kitchen table gazing into space and didn’t seem to notice his return. He leaned against the Aga staring at her for quite some time.

“Them lanterns…” she said suddenly, making him jump out of his skin.

“Lanterns?”

“Don’t play games; you know exactly what I mean… Rose’s birthday... you always set off a load of them Chinese lanterns… did you do it before we even came here?”

“Jackie…”

“I mean, you made a song and dance about it and this year, well, you know how upset I was… I’m just trying to piece it together…”

“Yeah… they were for Rose… both of them…”

“Were you ever gonna tell me?” Her eyes focused on him and he held them for a beat before sitting down beside her and taking her hand. It trembled beneath his.

“Honestly… I just don’t know… I meant it when I said that our Rose made it okay and I suppose, in a way, we’re mourning her and in that they are the same person…”

“But they ain’t dead…”

“Rose isn’t, I know, I didn’t say that… but as for…well, I’m still not convinced… I spoke to the Doctor, he’s not so sure either now… he didn’t even turn up… I called him…”

“And you don’t think that odd?”

“What?”

“He woke us up in the middle of the night… half killed you and let out your deepest, darkest secret and he may have been mistaken? This is the Doctor we’re talking about… come on Pete… if he’s back tracking, then he’s hiding something…”

“That never occurred… but Jackie ‘deepest, darkest secret’? I didn’t tell you because I really didn’t see what it would achieve…”

“By not telling, Pete, you denied her existence… ”

“That’s not quite right… I never met her… never knew her… and when I found out about her I did everything I could to trace her…”

“Obviously not enough…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She’s about, your Rose, and if she is, then you obviously didn’t look hard enough…”

“I did, Jackie, believe me… I don’t understand how someone can disappear for years without trace and then suddenly turn up, just like that…”

 

****************

He smiled at her across the table as she sat down. She had made a detour to the loo and had obviously tried to tidy herself up with the aid of the offerings of his bathroom. It didn’t matter; she had looked delightful enough all sleep ruffled and fuzzy.

“I have this throbbing in my head…”

“Headache?” His concern was very obvious.

“No… weird feeling, like there’s something there, just at the corner… like someone’s inside… a thrumming sort of drumming…”

“Perhaps you’re just overtired and stressed out?”

“Mmm… perhaps…”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be doing all this straight away… maybe we should ease ourselves gently into our life stories?”

“I want to... it's just, it’s complicated…”

“Yes… you can say that again… and you’re still not opening up to me. I’m probably the only person who can help you... who are you hiding from?”

“Some... people…”

“If you can’t trust me, then why are you here, hiding in my flat?”

“The Quayines came here for me…”

“What?”

“They have grief with me over a matter of my killing their chief… it was an accident… they have decreed that the only way to absolve his death is to take my life…”

He stared at her in silence for a loaded moment. “Still lying to me…”

“I’m not, they really have come after me, that’s why I came here, to escape them… but they followed…”

“I don’t doubt they’re after you, Rose, but as revenge for the death of their leader? My experience of Quayine is that they are ruthless thugs, they wouldn’t care if their leader was killed… they would just regroup and carry on their mission. And, Rose, their mission would have been at someone else’s orders. They follow orders from superior races; they’re just alien henchmen…” Rose reddened and silenced. “I want to know all about you, Rose… but if you can’t trust me, don’t want to tell me… well…”

“Alright! I am human… really, I am… it’s just that I spent most of my life off world. I was taken… as a baby… I don’t really know why… they never explained it all. I was being primed for something, something that was apparently my destiny when I grew up. I wasn’t badly treated, I was educated well, but I was on my own… there was never anyone like me. I knew what they were doing was wrong. I knew I was a prisoner. As I grew up and even though I couldn’t remember anything else all my instincts told me to run… and I did… I ran and I ran.”

“Where did you run, Rose?”

“I travelled the universe… took the opportunity when I was fourteen years old. Stowed away on a cruiser and hitched my way around. Whenever they found me I moved on. It’s been like a game... hide and seek. I did spend five years in France, the planet, not the country... I thought I had shaken them off, oh no, they caught up with me. I had to leave everyone… everything. I ran blindly… and then… then I was pulled through the rift… ended up in Cardiff. Weirdest thing though, just got tugged out of the vessel I had bummed a ride on and landed in Meddyg Pwy headquarters…”

“When… when did this happen?”

“About a year ago… give or take. First time I felt I really belonged, first humans I had ever seen, well, remembered seeing.”

“Did you try to trace your family?”

“Yeah… my parents died and I had no siblings… no extended family… I didn’t even bother going forward to the police. The team traced me from DNA samples and we all decided it was better if I stayed incognito…”

“Rose… can you tell me… and this is very important… the race that took you… who were they?”

“I don’t know what they were called… they kept so much from me. They seemed to have no soul… they saw me as a weapon for the future, I think. It was their voices that got to me more than anything… robotic, loud; destructive… they were full of hate. Are you alright, you’ve gone a bit grey?”


	10. Chapter 10

Rose listened to the silence he had left her in. She was stunned. She didn’t know why she didn’t stop him as he whirled around the flat stuttering in that geeky way he seemed to have about him.

She asked herself again, why she hadn’t moved on. She didn’t normally hang around when the guards caught up with her. It was this man… this Doctor. There was something about him that made her want to stay. She felt safe around him and that was weird. She had never felt safe and never relied on anyone else for it.

She wandered about, wondering where he was headed and how could she have so easily said she trusted him. Any moment Torchwood were going to break down the door and take her in for some of their very renowned questioning.

She visited the bathroom and the thrumming in her head intensified. She stood looking at the light, wondering if there might be a bad connection, she turned it off, but it made no difference.

She sat on the side of the bath thinking about her geeky Doctor, contemplating the possibility of a new life… one where she could stop running. Oddly the thrumming in her head made her feel less jumpy, it sort of lulled her into feeling perfectly secure. She couldn’t explain it. And that was something that she had never been able to accept. Everything had to have an explanation.

She followed the line of the light, reaching up to the sloped ceiling and tapping for beams. It led her out of the bathroom where the humming faded slightly. Just outside the door, there was a hatch and pulling a chair over, she pushed it open and heaved herself up into the tiny loft space.

Feeling around, her hands alighted upon a switch and the bulb flickered to life.

There was no magnified hum up here, it was still there, slightly dampened. She was about to turn off the light and continue her search down below when some writing on a box caught her eye.

“Rose Marion Tyler 22/12/07… 5/7/09” was scrawled across the side in solid black marker pen. Her curiosity was completely peaked. She knew she shouldn’t… but who would know if she sealed them back up and tucked them away again? It sort of was her business now, surely, wasn’t it?

Feeling little guilt, she sliced the tape on the first box and opened it up. It was mostly folders, casework regarding some kind of cannon and a few older ones… textbook paperwork from Torchwood. Similar to the sort of thing she had been doing in Cardiff for the past year or so. Obviously, this Rose was a round the clock worker as well, at least, she had been. In fact, one set of paperwork she found entailed plans for a small laboratory to be fitted within this very flat.

The next box contained more personal items. Clothes, jewellery, make up… toiletries… she placed a few bits aside. They looked expensive and she was in need of a wash and change. Who would know?

One more box. The largest of the three and she didn’t understand why she felt more nervous about it. Maybe she did have a conscience about her curiosity after all? It didn’t stop her opening the box.

She sat back and sighed. This was what she was after. Information. History. There were photos, letters, diaries. Everything she needed to know about this woman that had captured the Doctor’s heart first and then left him.

She flicked through a photo album… a blonde woman of about forty and a balding man, a baby, a toddler, a boy, a handsome dark man. And then… it was a picture of herself. 

She gazed at it for some time… studying every single detail of it. There was no difference… just the hair, like he had said. She looked sad and determined. There seemed to be no sun in her eyes. 

She back-tracked, studied the photos, trying to work out who they all were. There was a decided absence of him. 

Anger and sorrow surged through her. She knew something now. She just couldn’t work out the logistics. Had this all been planned? Did he know?

She grabbed the clothes and toiletries she had helped herself to, the photograph of Rose and another of the blonde lady, the balding man and the young boy. Then she quickly pushed the boxes back into place and switched off the light.

As she stood outside the bathroom the thrumming in her head got stronger and stronger as if feeding off her mixed emotions.

She entered the bathroom, intending to shower but a picture of the layout plans of the flat kept nagging at her memory. She walked forward to the far wall and shifted a dark blue dressing gown and a towel that were hanging there.

A door, partially hidden… a sort of secret door. The thrumming was fantastic, strong and excited. Her hand went to the knob and twisted it. The door slowly swung open.

 

*********

“Pete, you don’t understand… she is the little girl who was taken… but that’s where it ends… how could she be Rose when she’s been raised by monsters? Surely, the way we're bought up reflects the person we become and without Jackie… she can’t be her…”

“But, you just told me, she’s been running from them for fifteen years… she isn’t a monster just because she was raised by monsters! Okay, so she isn’t Rose Rose… but she is Rose of this universe, whatever's bought her to this point has made her who she is and you seem to like her well enough...”

“Pete’s right… every path a person takes makes them who they are and the very fact that she ran from them makes her a better person, a stronger one.”

“But, if they’re controlling her… everything is in jeopardy… the whole Universe, maybe even all universes…”

“Well, we have to be ready for them and it seems to me, we need to figure out why she was being used in this way… I mean, what purpose would they need her for?”

“Once before, I’ve seen something similar… a girl was taken by them and used… by the time I got there it was too late… she was a grown woman… but she was still rebelling, still fighting against their evil and… oh… oh… oh! I’m so stupid… why didn’t I think of it sooner…?”

“Doctor?”

“I can’t explain… have to get back… the coral….!”


	11. Chapter 11

The thing positively vibrated through her, sending messages that she couldn’t quite decipher all through her psyche. She stood beside it transfixed by its beauty. It was glowing and throbbing almost as if it were a living thing. She was filled with a total sense of peace and well being and the impulse to reach out and stroke it was so strong, but…

But she had trained herself to be on the lookout for traps and even though this thing was hypnotically beautiful and seemingly innocent, her inner alarm bells were still jingling right through her. She was at a peaceful war within herself.

Had they sent this to trick her? Was this part of the master plan? She stood stock still, unable to leave, unable to touch. The feelings became more intense, as if the thing were desperate for her to just... touch it… it needed her. Was it a prisoner like she had been?

No, she mustn’t… everything in her being told her do not touch and it also told her that she must.

And this is how he found her half an hour later… transfixed by his darling coral, at loggerheads with it as it tried to create a bond with the first female it had come across since coming into existence and one that it oddly seemed to recognise.

“Rose?”

“What is it?” she whispered, never taking her eyes off the coral. His hands on her arms seemed to break the spell that had taken hold of her and she relaxed against him, almost dizzy.

“She’s not dangerous… well… only if she chooses to be and certainly not for a while…probably a bit keen… you okay now?” She hadn’t realised that she was leaning so heavily into him and he was grinning down at her with what only could be described as more than concern. His eyes were full of excitement. Not arousal, well, not entirely arousal. He looked upon the coral and his eyes glowed with it.

She drew back from him, a little scared, suddenly seeing the part alien within him. “What is it?” she asked again and he turned at the sound of her voice. He was surprised to see fear and mistrust growing upon her face; he was also a little hurt.

“She’s my coral…” he answered feeling a little stupid that he had thought she might understand.

“That thing's been calling me since I got here… couldn’t work it out… it wanted me to touch it…”

“You didn’t though?” His voice was suddenly quite aggressive and she couldn’t work it out… was he jealous… worried that she might be hurt? He was searching her face, trying to see something within it that could tell him, “course you didn’t…” he said with relief before she could answer.

“What if I had?”

“Not sure… but, I think if you had Bad Things may have happened…”

“Bad Things? Is this some kind of a game to you?”

“No… not a game… your captors… they might know something… about you…”

“About me… or about… her?” His face dropped as he took in the fragment of anger that this woman suddenly seemed to be harbouring. “That woman from another dimension who waltzed in here and took over my family… then left taking your heart with her?”

“Rose…”

“Am I Rose, Doctor? Really… am I?”

They stood like this for a fair few moments as he contemplated words. Words were so hard and their meanings could be misinterpreted all too easily.

“Let’s talk…” He led her reluctantly back through the bathroom and into the sitting room and sat her down on the sofa.

“Here we go again… you gonna run off as soon as I say something to shock you, I mean, I was raised by aliens is more shocking than being half alien, right?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“What?”

“About your name…”

“Yes.”

“How did you come by Marion Rose Taylor? I mean... it’s an unlikely name for a… a Dalek to use unless they had prior knowledge.”

“They didn’t call me that… they didn’t really call me anything, not to my face… I was referred to on the screens as Lupus-Nocens, but their servers… the lesser aliens, their words not mine, that handled me… they had another name for me... Rowstaylor... that’s what it sounded like anyway and as a child I preferred that, you would, wouldn’t you? Nonny used to call me Rosa…”

“Nonny?”

“She loved me… she was my carer for many years… one day she just disappeared… I was told she had been exterminated… Dalek… is that what they’re called… have you heard of them before, then?”

“Yes… and it doesn’t surprise me to hear that there are some here sneaking in the shadows, hiding in a parallel waiting for…” He stopped himself short and she observed the pain etched on his face and had the urge to either run from him or to comfort him. Again.

“Anyway, I took up Rose Taylor when I escaped... it suited me and was easy to remember... when I got to Cardiff… when they traced me to… my…” She now stopped and looked puzzled. “They named me Marion, and I decided to add it although getting used to it was particularly hard. Everyone still ended up calling me Rose… said I looked like that missing heiress… sort of.”

“The missing heiress… did you dig any deeper with her?”

“No… had no reason to or so I thought... besides, just keeping my head low was occupation enough…”

“So you thought?” Rose nodded and produced the photograph of Rose she had found earlier. He studied it for a long moment.

“See, I think I figured it out, some of it… she was me... from another parallel… and you two came here… she found my real family and took my true place… they must have found out or something and she decided to go back…”

“It wasn’t quite like that… true, she is you from a parallel, but the circumstances were very different. She didn’t steal your life, Rose; she just visited it for a while, against her will.”

“I want to hear it... all of it…”

“I want to tell you it all…”

“Who are you?”

“Originally, I was a Time Lord…”

“I’ve heard of them… stuffy history lessons… but that’s ages ago… some of the books say they didn’t even exist… that they’re an urban myth!”

“There were never any Time Lords here, not any that came from here anyway… I was a Time Lord from another dimension…”

And so his story began, he covered his life briefly because nine hundred years would have made a very long story, but he covered enough for her to understand exactly what he once had been.

“So, there I was… newly regenerated and unsuspecting… I thought I might have not made it and then this place… called me… I got a signal… this planet was in danger… and I thought ‘why not?’ So, I came to rid the world of another alien threat and maybe get myself annihilated at the same time… that was when I met Rose.” He looked at her, this very same person who had remained very quiet as she listened to this part alien explain his life away. “Rose Marion Tyler… born April 27th 1987…”

“But… I’m older… same birthday from my records… but I was born four years earlier…”

“Yes… and that’s partly why your life was so different to hers…”

“Oh?”

“Rose, when your mother had you she was sixteen years old… your father and her had split up and he was unaware that she was even pregnant… her family pushed her into giving you away… put you up for adoption… something I think that she regretted till the day she… anyway… you were abducted from your adoptive parents… Rose Tyler was born into a married family…”

“She has everything and I have nothing? What did I do that was so wrong? Got born four years earlier?”

“Rose’s father died in a road accident when she was seven months old… her mother bought her up single handed in near poverty… she didn’t have it all at all… and she grew up into a decent person as well…”

“He… he died?”

“Yes… anyway… she and I we travelled together… she helped me so much in the early days... I was broken and she helped me to mend… we were such an unlikely couple and yet everyone assumed we were just that… I think I loved her from the start… like it was destiny… coincidence seemed to play such a huge role in our lives… still does in an insane way…”

“I’m coincidence?”

“Nope… I think you’re fate as it happens…”

“Fate!” she guffawed, but he could tell she was completely enthralled.

“The first time she met a Dalek, I completely lost it… but she… she wanted to understand it… protected it even… they had been the reason that my whole world had been taken… but she stopped me…”

“Yeah well, gotta give everyone a chance, ain’t ya?”

“Yes… that’s too true… you have… The first time she met her father was the day he died…”

“What?”

“She begged me to take her… I was a fool where she was concerned… I should never have agreed… it was a bad day…”

“You took her back in time?”

“I did… I did it often… oh, mostly to show off... backwards, forwards, as far as we could go… we mostly always found bother and we often nearly got ourselves killed... but it was… fantastic…”

“So… what happened?”

“Daleks happened… they always do…”

“Again?”

“Again and again and again… you think you’ve got rid of them… but they’re like rats… always turning up…” It was beginning to darken in the flat. The blinds were open and the orange light of the city began to light the ceiling. During his talking, they had managed to slither side by side onto the floor.

Although she was completely engrossed in his words, Rose became aware of herself. She hadn’t showered or changed in nearly two days and she was starving hungry. As if trying to protest, her stomach groaned.

“Hungry?” he laughed suddenly aware of their surroundings again.

“Yeah… and cold and stiff…and God, I need a shower!” He pulled himself to his feet and grabbed her hand helping her up. 

“Let’s take a break… go and shower and I’ll make us both something to eat… there’s a towel and a dressing gown… might be a bit big…”

“I’ll be fine… I, er… found a few things earlier…”

“Oh?” His eyebrow rose in question, but she didn’t elaborate.

She padded back to the bathroom, the thrumming of the coral intensifying as if it knew she was coming closer. She stopped at the doorway and looked back at him. He was still watching her.

“How come the Quayines haven’t come for me, they must know I’m here?”

“No… I don’t think they do… it’s the coral… she's protecting you…”

“What… I mean... how can it… and why would it… it don’t know me from Adam…”

“I think she does Rose… I think she knows you very well…”


	12. Chapter 12

Rose let the hot water massage her aches away, she was confused, information overloaded and yet, it was like she had fitted a missing piece to her jig-saw puzzle. It was so odd, this man had barged into her life and turned it upside down and yet it made more sense than it had ever… and that in itself, hardly made sense.

Her body reacted to the water and to thoughts of him and his rather nice bottom and she blushed to herself under the steam. 

The Doctor burnt himself on the sizzling pan as a feeling washed over him. His rusty telepathic ability seemed to have kicked in since the coral and Rose had come face to face and he was now picking up some rather unclean thoughts from Rose as she got clean under his shower. 

He added some oregano and stirred with one hand while sucking his burn on the other. He was very discombobulated by the physical attraction between them. He always had been, but the footing was a little different now. Maybe they might stand a chance once all truths had been told and all threats dealt with?

The water stopped and he began to lay up the table, polishing wine glasses and adding a candle… then deciding against it. It was trying too hard.

Within a few minutes, the door clicked and Rose emerged looking more like Rose than ever. He found himself pulling in a huge breath and it didn’t go unnoticed.

She was wearing a simple pair of black jeans and a purple t-shirt. Her feet were bare and her hair scraped into a turban style towel. She looked much younger then her twenty nine years without a scrap of make up on.

“I found these… hope that’s okay?” she stammered, flushing pink again as if he knew where her head had been a few minutes before.

“Found them… found them… where?”

“In the loft… I wasn’t snooping… just looking for that coral… there were some boxes up there… is that really bad?”

“No… of course not... I wasn’t even aware that she had left anything here…besides, technically they are yours… sort of…”

“I’ll put them back when I’ve finished with them…”

“You really don’t need to… I’m only surprised because I didn’t know…”

“Who put them up there, then?”

“Her d… your… dad… look, I never lived here with her… we never shared this universe…” She didn’t respond to this and he turned back to his sauce to give it a stir.

“Smells good… m’starving…” she said drawing nearer to him and looking hopefully into the pan. The smell of fresh washed Rose permeated his nostrils and he felt his lower stomach loop the loop.

“It’s ready…” he replied with a squeak and she took a seat at the table, observing the setting.

“All we need is a bit of candle light and it would be perfect,” she said and he had to look twice to see if she were teasing. She wasn’t, so he put the candle back and she lit it.

He served the linguine and sauce and pulled out some garlic bread from the oven. Then he sat opposite her and watched for a long moment as she attacked the food with much enthusiasm and with little, rather sexy, noises that showed her appreciation. She suddenly noticed him watching and stopped herself.

“What… I’m hungry and this… this is bloody delicious… where on Earth did you learn to cook?”

“Oh… nowhere on Earth… but that’s another story… remind me to tell you it one day.”

“Yeah… too much serious stuff to get out the way first…” She stuffed another forkful into her mouth and sucked the remaining pasta in, leaving him just a little breathless.

“So… my parents, do they know about me?” she asked matter-of-factually.

“Yes… but they only found out earlier, that’s where I went… I needed to ask them something…”

“Yeah?”

“Yes… you have to understand… he didn’t know until you were three and then he tried everything he could to trace you… but you were untraceable, of course…”

“He did… what about her?”

“It’s complicated, Rose, but I know that every moment she was apart from you there was always regret…”

“Funny that… they know I’m here and yet I don’t exactly see them breaking down the door to meet their long lost baby daughter!”

He put his fork down, but she didn’t, she continued to eat with much gusto.

“You know their names?”

“Yeah… how could I not?” He nodded and then after a long swig of wine, he continued his tale.

“The first time Rose and I came here, was quite by accident… we were pulled through some kind of rift… we had Mickey with us by then…”

“Mickey, but you said you wouldn’t travel with him!”

“Oh yes, that was before… I had regenerated by then and I seemed to not be bothered quite as much… it was evident which way the wind was blowing by then…”

“That ain’t fair… you can’t just leave out something as important as a face change… I mean that other Rose must have fallen for old moody leather!”

“Oi! Less of the old… and I suppose you’re right… but we were on the subject of your parents… I wasn’t going to leave out the regeneration… actually, that’s rather important…”

“I want it in order… please…” It seemed almost callous, the way she wasn’t pursuing her parent’s story, but he supposed she had fair reason at this point.

“Alright… Daleks, that’s where we were…, we had been travelling with another of Rose’s pretty boys… she seemed to collect them, although this one was a little different, I have to admit… he was a Time Agent from the future and very useful… terrible flirt…”

“She didn’t?”

“Oh no, good God no, he wouldn’t have dared… well, he would have… but for me breathing down his neck… she wouldn’t have… not by then… of that I’m certain. But they were great times, the three of us travelling… we made a fantastic team…”

“What happened…?”

“We were pulled into a sick Dalek game... one that entailed a destroying of the world as its finale… I sent her back… in the TARDIS, I wanted her safe… I was ready to die…” She dropped her fork and leaned over to squeeze his hand; he looked down at her hand upon his and sighed.

“You sent her away… bet she bloody loved that?”

“She didn’t, not one bit… she came back to me…”

“How… how did she manage… I don’t get it…”

“She took in the power inside the TARDIS… looked into its very heart...”

“That don’t sound like a good idea…”

“No… it wasn’t because it meant she was going to die… oh, she saved the world… destroyed some Daleks… but the power of the Vortex was inside her little human body and I had no choice… I was a Time Lord, I could cheat it…”

“You took it out of her and sacrificed moody leather?”

“I did…”

“How did you do that?”

“I kissed her…”

“Nice... kiss of death…”

“And of life…”

“Yeah… so you got a new face?”

“Yes… this one, pretty much…”

“Well… that’s alright then…”

“I hadn’t told her about regenerating…”

“Ah… I'll bet she was a little surprised?”

“Yes… particularly as I passed out and threw her into another adventure… it was okay though… I managed to come to in the nick of time…”

“What happened?”

“Oh you know... usual stuff… sword fights in pyjamas, got my hand chopped off… grew another…”

“You grew another?”

“Yeah… that’s quite important, that hand, actually… remember that hand…”

“I could hardly forget it!”

“The thing about this regeneration is that I sort of tailor made my self for her…”

“Tailor made… I think I like the idea of that!”

“Cheeky… I was made for her in a way… anyway… we had some brilliant times… some not so and then we stumbled into here… this universe…”

“My universe…”

“Exactly… of course Rose was fascinated to find that her parallel father lived and set off to have a look… I didn’t want her to…”

“If she’s anything like me, she’d be headstrong… oh, hang on, she’s a lot like me, isn’t she?”

“Behave… it wasn’t funny… we saw them, your parents and it wasn’t good. Another invasion from another threat was in the offing and we found ourselves caught up in a deadly game… I’m afraid, Rose; your mother didn’t make it…”

“My mother?” Rose’s face dropped as she tried to compute what he was telling her. He took both her hands in his and gazed solemnly into her eyes.

“Rose, your natural… birth mother… she died…”


	13. Chapter 13

“What… but… who?” Her eyes were as large as saucers and he shook his head, knowing that there was no gentle way to break this.

“She’s Jackie Tyler from the other dimension…” Rose made no answer to this, just continued looking at him waiting for an explanation. “Another threat… Cybermen and Daleks again… and we found ourselves on the cusp of these two parallels merging… that can’t happen… it was worse here, things tend to tick over slightly faster. Your dad, a widow by then and in charge of Torchwood, was on a mission to find me... he knew that I could help, had witnessed it before. He didn’t bank on coming face to face with his dead wife, nor she with her long dead husband… and the odd thing was… and I witnessed it… the love they had for each other seemed to bridge that divide…”

“You just said two parallels merging can’t happen…”

“That’s different… anyway… things got messy and Rose and Jackie ended up trapped here while I sealed myself into the other dimension… alone… for three years…”

“And you couldn’t get them back… couldn’t come for her?”

“No…”

“Not right away…”

“I never intended to try… it would have meant a crack in the divide again… possibly ending all existence…”

“So you refused to cross barriers for the woman you love? Then what… don’t tell me… she found a way?”

“Sort of… I was miserable without her, I have to add…”

“Serves your right…”

“The worlds were in danger again…”

“Again? Don’t tell me… Daleks!”

“Don’t be glib, Rose… this is important!”

“I wasn’t being glib… you just told me that the mother I never knew died… oh, but its okay, she was replaced by another one from a parallel world! Is that what this is all about? You just find a replacement to fit the empty space?”

“No… God know… I wasn’t looking for you when we met… you really think that?”

“Look at it from my point of view! You’ve been hopping in and out of dimensions like there’s no tomorrow… what were you doing… seeing which one fitted the best? Did your Rose get fed up and leave you… did she go back with Mickey and leave you to lick your wounds?”

“Just stop…”

“And what would the Daleks want with me? They’re linked to you, aren’t they? If they took me, then it has to have something to do with you! It’s your fault”

“Rose!”

“Marion!”

“Rose…”

“You stop it, with your sad, brown eyes… I don’t get it… what the hell am I doing here?” She jumped up from the table and made a bid for the door and he watched, mouth open and terror filling his heart again. 

If she was going to leave, it was surely her choice? And yet, every fibre in his body wanted to get up and keep her from leaving him. She was trying, and failing, to open the door and he could see how upset she was.

He stood abruptly, chair falling to the floor, and in two strides he was across the room. His hand upon her shoulder pulled her swiftly around to face him. Her eyes were full of anger, but there were tears forming within and he knew. He knew that she was his.

He kissed her with a hungry passion and she, at first, struggled against him, but only for a moment. Suddenly, she was kissing him back with as much fervour. Their tongues twisted around one another’s and both bodies reacted instantaneously. Her legs wrapped around his waist and he began to walk them to the bedroom, still kissing her as if their lives depended on it.

If it hadn’t been for the side table by the sofa, they probably would have made it to the bedroom. Instead, they fell heavily to the floor. He took the brunt of their fall and she giggled on top of him. He joined in the laughter and then she stilled.

“I have to tell you something…”

“You’re really a man?”

“Shut up… this is serious… and… sort of... embarrassing…”

“You’ve no need to be embarrassed… you can tell me anything!”

“Yeah… well… it’s like this… you know, spent most of my life in captivity… surrounded by females…”

“You’re gay?”

“No! Stop it… listen to me… then I’ve spent the rest of it on the run… I’ve never stopped… and I’ve never trusted anyone since Nonny… I’m twenty nine and… well, I’ve never…” she tailed off, lowering her eyes.

“But… but… all those signals… you implied… Rose?” She had buried her face in his chest as he stuttered and he had to tilt her chin up to look into her very pink face.

“I implied…” she mumbled, “cos I didn’t want to look stupid and the signals were… are real!” There was a silence between them that cooled him down a little.

“Right… right… well… right…” He had no clue how to react to this new information and she sat up astride him and pushed heavily at his chest with both palms.

“Thanks for the confidence boost… I could have said nothing, just got on with it… now you _have_ made me feel stupid!” She tried to pull herself off him, but he grabbed her wrists and held her fast. “What?”

“Five years in France… the planet?”

“Yeah… those French aliens… bit pushy… nope, not for me… I wasn’t interested.”

“Oh, Rose, stereo-typing, shame on you! So... you saved yourself... for me?”

“Shut up… I just never had the inclination… not till I met you…” They locked eyes and then,slowly, his face began to spread. His eyes crinkled up and his mouth tried to meet his ears. He let out a happy, almost triumphant noise deep within his throat. Rose blushed again. 

Then he composed himself. “I have something to admit to you also…”

“Bloody hell, it’s like a confessional!”

“I never have either... not in this body… not exactly pure, but the body is…”

“No!” 

“Yes!”

“But… what about Rose?”

“Not in this body…”

“But you said… you said she liked it well enough?”

“She did… does… Rose, here’s the thing… I’m not that man… I mean, I share his memories and everything, but something happened and I… he did something a little foolhardy, the result was me. I’m not a Time Lord, not exactly… and I’m certainly not that Time Lord, not any more. He’s with Rose. That’s why I’m here.”

“You’re… you’re not him?”

“No… I’m not him…” He said this as if he were realising it for the first time. “That all right?”

“Do you know what?”

“What?”

“I think it might be the best thing I’ve heard you say yet!”


	14. Chapter 14

“So… it’s a bit more even now, then?” she asked a little coyly, looking at him from under her lashes.

“I suppose it is… but, Rose… I mean… we should do this properly…”

“I should say… although, doing it improperly rather appeals…”

“I want our first time to be special…”

“It will be…” He sat up and faced her; she was still sitting astride him.

“Rose… I want it to be very special…”

“You’re not going to duck out on it now, are you? No, please… I’ve waited long enough… please?”

“Rose…”

“No! It’s not fair!” She jumped up and pulled off her t-shirt. “You’re not going to do this … I want to now!” He stood up quietly, a small smile burgeoning on his mouth. “This close… we were this close… it will be special… it will!” She was fumbling with her flies as she spoke, a desperation filtering through. Her flies came down and so did her jeans. “We have to now… I can’t wait any longer! I’m twenty nine, for God’s sake!”

He took her naked arms and tried to stop her from undoing the clasp on the pink bra she had purloined from the box upstairs.

“I want to take you away… somewhere nice… do it properly… a special memory…”

“Just a little too controlled for my liking… you should just want to rip my knickers off here and now and do the deed!”

“Rose!”

“What? I’m frustrated… I’ve never been as aroused since I met you and… you… you can’t want me that much or else you would have by now!”

“I want you very, very much… but, here’s the deal… this is forever… and I want it to be a lasting memory… I want you to know all about me... not him, but me… how I came about… what happened, what I am… what I’ve been doing since… I want to marry you… I want to take you away in my own home grown TARDIS… I want us to make love under the stars… I want…”

“I want sex! With you… right here! Right now! I don’t care about all the frills and flowers… I just want hot, rampant lovemaking now!”

“Rose… you need to calm yourself, just a little…”

“Been brewing all day… first the coral and all that talking… do you never stop? Just do the deed and HAVE IT OFF WITH ME… NOW!!”

It was at this very moment as Rose stood in Rose Tyler’s borrowed underwear, shouting at him, demanding that he had sex with her there and then, that there was a knock at the door.

She was silenced immediately, then she yelped and picked up her t-shirt.

“I’ll be right there!” called the Doctor, almost smirking at her panic. She managed to get the top on and ran, clutching the jeans, into the bathroom and slammed the door.

The Doctor opened the door to be faced with both Jackie and Pete Tyler looking somewhat frosty.

“Jackie? Pete? What… I mean… do you think it’s a good idea… oh, lord!”

“Mmmm… you could say that…” Jackie hissed with a sniff as she entered the flat without being invited. At least Pete had the fortitude to look embarrassed about arriving unannounced.

The Doctor closed the door and turned to them, looking furtively at the bathroom door and wondering just how sound proof his front door actually was.

“Jackie thought that she would be hurt if we didn’t make the effort… I know it’s a little tardy… but if we didn’t she might think we never cared...” Pete finally said to break the loaded silence that followed their entrance.

“But, I don’t think… I mean… this Rose is twenty nine… she’s only just found out who she really is! Surely it would have been better to ease into the whole process gently and slowly…”

“Unlike you… you randy little sod! She obviously couldn’t have cared less judging by what I just heard… what is it with you?”

“He happens to be very, very sexy… what can I say?” Rose had entered stage left and had a face on her that looked like thunder.

“Oh!” Jackie actually stumbled as she swung round to face the familiar features of her lost daughter. The Doctor caught her elbow as she staggered and she righted herself immediately. Rose stared into her face without recognition, her chin held upright and defiant. 

“Doctor… aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?” Rose was trying to remain emotionless and aloof, but he could see only too well the struggle that was going on inside. It didn’t help that her t-shirt was on inside out.

“Rose… this is Pete… Tyler…”

“Pleased to meet you…” she said, curtly and nodded her head ignoring the shaking hand that he offered as if touching might just be too much.

“And this is his wife… Jackie…” Jackie sobbed and overstepped the boundaries immediately. She took the woman into a huge hug weeping profusely and mumbling incoherently. Rose was completely white washed by this. She hadn’t been expecting, nor had she been prepared for this. Her eyes met the Doctor’s as if she were asking for help. But Jackie was talking nine to the dozen.

“Oh… I know you aren’t my Rose… but you are Rose… so even though I don’t know you... I know you… and I just want you to know that I want you to know me and maybe we can help to right the wrong... together?” Rose pulled back in disbelief, unsure how she should react. 

All her life in her day dreams she had re-enacted these sorts of moments and had gone from blistering anger to immeasurable joy and back again. Now, the circumstances were very different and she really hadn’t expected the woman who could be her mother to treat the moment with such unadulterated and raw emotion. In fact, Rose reflected, this woman had raised her own daughter single handed and by all accounts had done a good job of it. Why should she be angry at the woman’s honesty?

“Jackie, slow down…” the Doctor interjected but Rose interrupted him.

“I’m not… her…. I won’t be a replacement… but I can’t lie… I am touched… very… and I’m surprised by that.”

“I’m not…” whispered Jackie.

Pete had still said nothing; he truly didn’t know what to say. He had dreamt about this for many, many years and thought it would be the happiest moment of his life. Then, Rose Tyler had wept and swept into his life and he had bonded with her so very well. They were so alike it was uncanny. He had been proud to call her daughter. Now here was a new Rose, threatening the memory of the Rose he had cherished, the one who had bought with her all the happiness he had ever wanted. How could he be the chameleon that his wife appeared to be and just switch emotions at the drop of a hat? And on top of that, it looked like this Rose was harbouring some anger and it was all directed at him...


	15. Chapter 15

Pete stood watching the Doctor in the laboratory. To say he was feeling pretty desperate would be a huge understatement. His own daughter was a complete stranger to him and was incredibly angry at him to boot. And to cap it all, she seemed to be bonding with his wife rather quickly. He could hear them talking in the kitchen in a very animated way.

“Give her time, Pete, she’s bright. She’ll work it out…” soothed the Doctor as he massaged the roots of the thing that he was cooing at.

Pete wasn’t sure if what he was observing was particularly appropriate, so he averted his eyes. “It’s just so hard… harsh even… if you only knew what a difficult time your Rose gave me when I rescued her from falling into the void! It took months and months of gentle persuasion for her to even consider me… and this… well… it’s different… a whole new scenario… why couldn’t I just have normal?”

The Doctor straightened up and weighed up Pete’s words. “Weeell…” he stretched out the vowel as far as he could, “firstly, and I say it with the greatest of respect for her, but she really isn’t my Rose, she’s his, and she wasn’t exactly yours either, you rather borrowed her from a dead version of you… now this Rose… I think she is mine… no, I’m sure she’s mine… and she’s your own flesh and blood, Pete... doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Of course it does… but… well… I buried it all years ago. I really thought she was dead. And then Rose Tyler came into my life… she was so…”

“Fantastic?”

“Yes... exactly… and…”

“Brilliant?”

“I really bonded with her. We were inseparable at work… the perfect pair… how can I start all over again... particularly with someone who hates me so much?”

“Oh, Pete, it's natural… its blood. You just have to go with your feelings. It might take time… but we’ll all get there. Look at Jackie, she’s…”

“Fantastic? Brilliant? I know…”

“But she really is… don’t tell her I told you that… you know, only too well, how completely broken she was about Rose leaving… look how strong and brave she’s being… for all of us!”

“But what do you think her Rose would say about it?”

The Doctor chewed his bottom lip for a moment, choosing his words. “I think she’d say ‘Good for you, Mum, I miss you, but I made my choice… that Rose has never had a mother, maybe it’s about time she did?’ or words to that effect...”

“You really think that?”

“I’m sure she’d be a little wistful… a little jealous… but on the whole… yeah, that would be the sort of thing…”

“So, I just have to bide my time… be me… and wait?”

“No… not entirely, Pete… you have to make the effort... involve her… make her know that you want her to be part of your life... and that you want to be part of hers.”

“Yes… right of course… and you, what are your feelings… your intentions, Doctor?”

“Sorry?”

“With my daughter?”

“Oh, Pete, you aren’t going to give me the heavy… oh… you are… right… completely honourable, contrary to what you think you heard…”

“So, you’re leading her up the garden path?”

“Pete… stop it… no, I love her... plain and simple. We were made for each other… no, I think we literally were.”

“Very touching…” 

Both men swung around at Rose’s voice. She was leaning in the doorway smiling, but it wasn’t entirely genuine, it was sort of plastered on uncomfortably as if she was trying not to reveal her contempt of one man to the other and failing abysmally.

“Hello…” The Doctor hummed, giving her a little wave, a blush colouring his cheeks. 

Her eyes shone at him, and she turned to him as if dismissing her father. “Come and see this!” She giggled and took his hand.

She led him into the little kitchen where Jackie sat at the table with a pot of tea. She was wiggling it around in her palms. The Doctor looked at her with a raised brow.

“Just warmin’ the pot...” she muttered. Then she poured the hot water from the kettle into the pot and replaced the lid.

“I don’t understand…” The Doctor looked from Rose to Jackie, puzzled. Pete had followed them in and was observing as if he were an outsider.

“Jackie’s making tea…” said Rose reverently.

“Yes, that’s what Jackie does…” 

“Sshh…” They continued to watch her in silence as she poured milk into a cup, added one and half teaspoons of sugar, then popped the strainer on top of the cup. The tea that poured from the spout was dark gold and steaming.

“There you are!” She handed it to Rose, who cupped both hands about it and gently sipped. Her eyes rolled, and she sighed happily.

“Rose?”

“Fifth one she’s made me, and she hasn’t missed! I thought I had had the best cup of tea ever at The Plan Café in Cardiff, but this… this is heaven!” She sipped in the tea and sighed again.

The Doctor chuckled and accepted his own cup from Jackie. “I suppose that’s one of the perks of meeting your doppelganger’s mother, she knows exactly how you like your eggs done as well! Oh… that was rude… sorry… you’ll have to get used to that… I can sometimes be quite rude…” There was a loaded silence as they all waited for some kind of reaction. It was Rose that broke it.

“Not quite rude enough, though!” she said with a wink.

“Rose!” reprimanded Jackie as only a mother could. Pete and the Doctor dissolved into what could only be described as ‘the giggles’, and as Jackie handed her husband a nice cup of tea with a shake of her wise blonde head, it was the Doctor who caught the look on Rose’s face as she watched her father, who was still chuckling. It was actually going to work, eventually.

Later on, when Jackie and Pete had left, he asked her what her anger was about.

“I dunno…” she said, shrugging. “I suppose, all my life, I was waiting for someone to rescue me, you know? Then, when I realised that he wasn’t coming, I rescued myself. It isn’t nice… that feeling of someone just giving up on you… if it were my child, I would search my whole life… if only for answers… but he replaced me well enough and pretended I never existed…” 

“You must understand, though…”

“Yes… as it happens, I do… and it might take some time and he’s going to have to show me it’s worth it… but actually, right now, he’s not the most important man in my life… which is strange, cos he usually always has been…”

“Oh?”

“Did you notice… we’re alone again?”

“Ah…”

“It’s alright… I’m not going to start wailing like a banshee again… it’s just something occurred to me about something you said…”

“Mmmm... what was that, then?”

“Right… how did it go? Oh, yes... ‘I want you to know all about me… not him, but me… how I came about… what happened, what I am… what I’ve been doing since… I want to marry you… I want to take you away…’ you get what I’m saying?”

“You want to know what I’ve been up to. How I'm here?”

“No… doofus… well, yes, but that isn’t what I meant. You. Said. You. Wanted. To. Marry. Me…”


	16. Chapter 16

“I did? I did… I do... yes, of course… don’t you want to?”

“Forty eight hours ago, I would never have even have had the inclination to kiss another person, let alone do anything else… as for marriage, I would have laughed at the idea!”

“That wasn’t an answer…”

“It wasn’t exactly a proposal though, was it?”

“You want me on one knee?”

“One knee, two knees… want you any way I can get it… see… what is that?”

“I think, Rose Taylor, that you are... horny…”

“I am… so what can I do about it?”

“Cold shower? Chocolate… ow… I’m kidding!”

“I’m not Rose Taylor though, am I?”

“Does it matter? You’re you…”

“I think names are important… I must have heard them wrong, they must have been calling me… but how would they know? Actually, what do you think the Daleks wanted with me? You must have a theory…”

“Yes… I do… and it does go back to Rose Tyler… when she looked into the heart of the TARDIS, it changed her… I mean really changed her… the vortex and her became something that called itself the Bad Wolf…”

“Lupus-Nocens!”

“Clever girl… yes… I wondered when you said that what it meant… I mean, I know what it translates as… but why would Daleks steal a baby and name her Lupus-Nocens… a wolf that will bring harm? And yet, they witnessed Rose as the Bad Wolf in action, saw the power, the devastation that she was capable of… they’re slippery dodgers, them… think they’re all destroyed and they crop up again and again… transport themselves through time and space… oh!... oh!...oh!”

“What?”

“The Cult of Skaro!”

“Who?”

“This secret band of Daleks, sent on missions, in part, to try and vandalise time so that what happens in the future can’t… maybe they got through the crack in the dimensions and sought you out…”

“Like Sarah Conner?”

“Not quite... they would have just exterminated you if that were the case… they were priming you… I think they were going to try and harness the power of the Bad Wolf…”

“But… I’m not…”

“You have the potential…”

“But no TARDIS to… ah!”

“Ah… indeed… enter my darling little coral…”

“But how could they know… I mean…. twenty nine years ago, that there would be a full grown TARDIS here one day?”

“Someone read the timelines… someone always does…”

“So, this Group of Spiro saw what Rose, as the Bad Wolf, was capable of and thought they’d hop onto another dimension and steal her parallel self until they could make her become the Bad Wolf and use it to…?”

“Cult of Skaro... they would use it to destroy everything not Dalek... that’s what they do…” 

Rose stopped and digested this before continuing. “Not exactly a very wonderful fate for the world, then?”

“Never, not with them… it keeps bouncing around in my head… Rose’s dad died when she was seven months old…. you were kidnapped at the same age… same date actually…”

“Four years earlier…”

“I’m not sure that’s relevant… but when was it you got pulled through the rift into Cardiff?”

“Last July… the fifth…”

“That’s the day that I was left here… see all these timelines running in and out of one another and that wasn’t Dalek doing… I was left the day you arrived and you were pulled through that rift on that particular day on purpose.”

“Well… who would do that?”

“Something with a great deal of power… something that could also read timelines…”

“Keep going…”

“See, when I/he kissed Rose to pull the vortex from her, I/he really believed we had been successful… and yet, when she needed to leave me/him messages last year, she could… how could she do that? I think Rose Tyler was altered forever all that time ago and I think when she and the TARDIS left this dimension together, they saw an opportunity to right some wrongs…”

“But this is all theory...”

“It fits… you think its all coincidence?”

“But they’ve still left us mortals here to deal with a very dangerous threat…”

“I can handle them… I know how to deal with them…”

“Why does that make me feel uneasy?”

“The coral must recognise something in both your DNA’s… she’s protecting you from them… they can’t trace you… while you’re here, you’re safe and that gives us the advantage…”

“So we hide from them till they go away?”

“Don’t be silly… we have to come up with a plan before they do… it’s late… you should get some rest…”

“Rest? How can I rest… I want to know everything… like how you and he aren’t just him anymore… like what are we going to do about this Band of Scarface and…”

“Cult of Skaro, although it might not be Skaro… I witnessed a few casualties in that department… could be another cult… could have been many sent out when I think of it… that’s make sense… send out the scout bees…”

“You’re mumbling…”

“Remember my hand?”

“Your… hand?”

“I got it sliced off?”

“Oh yes… sword fight in your pyjamas… you grew a new one… that hand?”

“That’s the feller… see, this hand sort of had a few adventures of its own… and it eventually found its way back…”

“This hand… this one right here?” She was looking at the hand that was linked with hers.

“Yep… well… the very last adventure I had as him… I got a little foolish… Rose had found me and I was so proud and I didn’t want to regenerate… I wasn’t ready… I wanted to stay with… oh, anyway… I sort of used my severed hand to drain away my regeneration energy… it was there… it seemed like a good solution at the time…”

“What happened?”

“Well, nothing… not at first… there was an awful lot going on… there were…”

“No... don't tell me... Daleks?”

“Every time! And I was with this marvellous woman… one of my best friends… she really helped me... anyway… Donna was her name... she got trapped in the TARDIS with my severed hand full of siphoned off regeneration energy. And so, panic on, TARDIS and Donna and hand all chucked into the equivalent of a Dalek incinerator. Heat and fear and a hand ticking away… it grew another me… Donna triggered it, the TARDIS did the rest.”

“It grew another you?”

“Yup…”

“From this hand?”

“Yup…”

“You’re a… you’re like a… clone?”

“Oh Rose… shame on you… a clone isn’t quite… a copy… oh no… I’m a human version of that particular Time Lord. I used to look down my nose at people like me. I didn’t believe that they could have feelings… thought people like me didn’t deserve to exist…”

“You don’t half ramble on… listen, I don’t care… I know now and it doesn’t matter!”

“Really?”

“I think you’re a weird, geeky, sexy bloke in need of a proper name and a good shagging and I don’t care what the other one is like… I have you…”

“You do.”

“So… is that everything?”

“No… not everything, but all I wanted you to know immediately…”

“Good… I can see things a little more clearly now… so….”

“So?”

“About this shagging..?”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Not at all work or child friendly!_

“You really do have a one track mind, don’t you?”

“Not usually… don’t you want to?”

“It isn’t that… I want it to be perfect and proper…”

“Proper, you think I’m waiting for you to marry me… well, only if we go and find somewhere right now and I don’t think there’s anywhere in this country that does that… God, were you this… reserved with Rose Tyler when you were the Time Lord?”

“You have no idea!”

“Poor Rose…” She looked genuinely sad for her momentarily and then turned hungry, predatory eyes upon him.

“Look, let’s do this slowly… you’re actually making me a little nervous…”

“You scared of it?”

“No, maybe a little worried I won’t live up to your expectations…”

“I don’t mind… from what I’ve read, I’m not expecting anything too amazing the first time anyway… we can have fun learning, can’t we?”

“Yes…” His voice pitched up and he cleared his throat as her face lit up with excited happiness.

“Yes?” He didn’t say anything, but he nodded and she blushed and chewed rather distractingly upon her lower lip. She moved towards him and he, a little awkwardly, moved towards her licking his lips.

“You look like a rabbit in headlights!” she stopped, the excitement beginning to drain from her. “Maybe you _are_ less human than you thought?”

“No… I am… it’s just… you’re being quite clinical about it… I mean, have you never heard of being romantic?”

“Read about it… does it really exist... thought it was urban myth…?”

“But of course it exists! I think we’ve already had a few moments… to do this properly, one has to set the scene… get ready for the moment…”

“Oh, I’m ready for the moment… I think I was ready from the very first word you said to me… remember what that was?”

“Um… ‘Get away from that Quayine... let him have the pineapple’?”

“No, silly, it was ‘Rose’…”

There was a long moment as he ran back through his memories and then he turned his eyes to her, “See; now that was romantic…”

“I’m a natural… alright, let’s do it your way, lets set the scene… prepare for the moment… how do we do that?”

“How? Right… we… er… we just…” he stammered, clearly he was still feeling very much on the spot.

“Candles?”

“Yes… candles... well done…” he made a dash for the kitchen and threw himself into a cupboard and started to rummage about. She just stood there half smiling and thinking.

“And music… shall I choose some music?”

“Yes…” came the muffled reply.

Rose tapped through his iPod and found something suitable for the mood they were trying to conjure up, then, as it filled the air, she sat down on the sofa and waited for him.

There was much of a kafuffle going on in the kitchen and when he squealed rather loudly, she jumped up and went to help.

His hair was on fire. He was hitting his head rather desperately and very inefficiently. Rose grabbed him and pulled him across the room towards the bathroom (the sink was still full of unwashed tea making regalia) and shoved him under the shower. His head sizzled and steamed and she got drenched as she leant in to turn on the tap.

They sat there looking stunned, the water pouring down on the pair of them and Marvin Gaye blaring out about getting ‘that feeling’ in the next room.

It was a moment, a small moment of shock and then the ice broke and their faces broke into hysterical laughter. She sat beside him and laughed along with him for the ridiculousness of it all and for the fear of what could have been. Then suddenly, she realised that she was the only one laughing and turned to him with a smiling question.

What met her eyes had her silenced in a trice and her breath seemed to leave her. His eyes were dark and his face so hungry that she almost feared for her life… but for a split second.

Simultaneously, they knelt up and, under the water; they found each other’s mouths. The kiss was brutal, a deluge of passion erupting as each body began its needy dance.

Rose’s purple t-shirt was peeled swiftly off her and the pink bra soon went with it. He buried himself in her chest, his tongue joining the streaming water sucking and licking and her experiencing a whole range of sensations that she hadn’t realised she were capable of.

His eyes met hers and he grinned into her lustful glaze as he undid the buttons on his shirt and pulled it off with some difficulty, wet cotton clinging to wet skin.

She pulled him to her, wet naked skin sliding across wet naked skin and she began to tremble with the need that had been building up and was now more than ready to make its climax.

Their mouths searched each other hungrily, his hands pulling her bum into him so she could feel exactly what she was doing to him. His thumb found its way into her jeans and stroked the skin on her hips as if it were requesting entrance to her jeans. She pulled back, breathing heavily, the torrent of water still beating down on them, and she nodded.

Together, they stood, both undoing their own flies and both peeling at the soggy materials that clung to them until they were naked, rivulets of water streaming down their now very sensitised skins.

Two sets of lust darkened eyes travelled up one another’s naked bodies, taking in all that they were about to have and then as if by telepathy they dived back into each other’s arms, the water still pounding down on them and drowning out the little gasps and pleading noises that escaped each of them as they explored one another for the first time.

Bravely, she touched him, marvelling at the ingenuity of the human body and glorying in the fact that it was her that had made him so hard. He wasn’t far behind her as a new sensation rocked through her.

Rose had touched her self down there before, firstly to wash and then through curiosity, but she had never actually bought herself to full orgasm and truth be told however much reading she had done, she certainly wasn’t equipped with the knowledge to do such a thing. Her body had never felt awash with desire before now and so when his hand slipped between her legs and found the place that ached to be touched she cried out, her voice sounding over and above the shower and Marvin Gaye.

He pulled back to look at her face, never stopping the rhythm of his fingers. She let her head flop, his own needs forgotten as he explored Rose, now popping a finger inside her and moving it in and out of her as his thumb still swiped its rhythm upon her most sensitive part.

Within moments she reached her first climax and he still continued his rhythm, now adding another finger and pushing himself to her so she could feel his hardness digging into her belly.

Their eyes met, his asking the question but before she could answer, he picked her up and carried her, slippery, wet and naked into the bedroom where he placed her on the bed.

“Oh Rose… are you sure?” he gazed down upon his bounty, worry suddenly clouding his lust.

“Sshh …don’t speak…” she pulled at his arm and he dropped down beside her, immediately finding her mouth again. But he broke away and travelled down her body, peppering it with little kisses. Clearly, he had ideas.

He opened her legs and explored her with his eyes and she blushed slightly, unsure what he was going to do next.

He lowered his head and swiped at her with his tongue. Her natural instinct was to bring her knees together, but he held them open and continued his exploration of her with his tongue.

Rose had never imagined that she could be made to feel like this and as his tongue worked some kind of magic upon her, she lost all control of her previous inhibitions and opened herself wider to him her cries keening as she began a crescendo of orgasm far more powerful even than she had experienced in the shower moments before.

As she shuddered over the edge she was aware of him moving and when she opened her eyes, he was above her, his tip touching where his tongue had just been.

“Doctor… no babies?” her eyes questioned him and he shook his head.

“I’ve taken care of it...” he whispered and pushed himself gently into her opening, resting just inside the entrance allowing her to get used to the feel of him.

She wriggled under him, encouraging him to continue which he did, very gradually. But Rose was having none of that.

“Do it…” she demanded, her eyes glazed with passion and he couldn’t disobey her. His hips drove home his needy member right to the hilt and Rose cried out with joy at the feeling of being filled completely up.

It didn’t take long for them both to reach a frantic climax as she encouraged him with clipped and gasping instructions.

“Faster…” he complied readily, “harder…” he thrust into her forcefully, “deeper…” he pulled her legs up over his arms and let himself go.

As their orgasm collided she cried out, “I… love… you…” and he wept for the joy of this new found happiness.

They collapsed, damp and a little sweaty onto the bed and as she drifted off into a much needed sleep in his arms, he kissed her forehead and whispered, “I love you, too…” she didn’t reply, but her lips curled slightly upwards as he too, joined her in sleep.


	18. Chapter 18

They didn’t sleep for long; their damp skins against the cold air when the heating went off soon disturbed them.

He pulled her under the duvet, made her giggle as he started to explore her in earnest. All his previous reservations now vanquished and the need to own her again his only concern.

Warm and sated he dozed into her neck, his hot breath ghosting her chin. She held him, the closest, most intimate contact she had ever had. She now knew what it was like to belong, what it was like to feel happiness. But something was bothering her.

Daleks had taken her in order to destroy worlds and she was hiding from them. The coral in the next room was calling to her constantly and she was afraid. What if this was her destiny? What if they had read the timelines and she was placed there by them because this was what had been read?

This scared her so much. To happen upon love in such a way only to be the reason for its destruction? 

She wriggled out of bed and padded naked to the bathroom, the pulse of the coral getting stronger and stronger with each step.

She pushed the laboratory door open and leaned against the door frame observing it as it tried to make contact with her.

“What do you want from me?” she whispered, scared of disturbing the Doctor. The corals pulse upped itself until she could hardly think; hardly hear the noise outside of her head. “Stop it… just stop it!” She wasn’t even sure if she spoke out loud such was the chaos inside her head. But her forcefulness seemed to abate the coral's excitement and it quietened a little, although not completely.

She got the intense feeling that she had upset it and immediately regretted being quite as abrupt. “What… you don’t like being shouted at? Well, neither do I, so now you know.” She approached it without realising, its throbbing still like a magnetic pull to her.

“What do you want?” she asked again, leaning over its pot and staring into it as if trying to see the being she could sense within it.

“Rose!” She turned quickly, guiltily, and faced her Doctor standing in the doorway, a towel slung around his waist. “What are you doing?” His face carried many conflicting emotions and it frightened her a little. The worst one she could read was mistrust. But how must it look to him, her sneaking out here in the middle of the night?

She padded over to him like a naughty child, not remembering that she was completely naked. “It keeps calling me, I don’t understand.”

“She, she keeps calling you…” His face had softened as he looked down at her and she felt her insides flip over again. “She’s sentient, I told you about the TARDIS…”

“But why me?”

“She’s a baby for all intents and purposes; she’s trying to bond with you. This coral is taken from my old girl…”

“She’s… she’s a cutting?”

“Sshh… don’t say that… more like spawn… if you have to label her…”

“I do. I have to understand something that’s so eager to get inside my head”

“I said before, her DNA is of the same TARDIS that Rose Tyler became the Bad Wolf with, and whether you like it or not you have exactly the same DNA as Rose Tyler. She recognises you and needs to say hello.”

“Needs? Fine… but I’m not her mother and incidentally, if that is the case and it’s all so very innocent, then why are you so vehement about my not going within touching distance?”

“Truthfully... I don’t know… I suppose I’m a little scared…”

“That I’ll become an alternate Bad Wolf? That’s what the Daleks are after, isn’t it?” 

“Yes, but only under their control…”

“So, if I became this with her, wouldn’t that be a way of solving our Dalek infestation?”

“That isn’t going to happen…”

“It worked before…”

“Rose nearly died, Rose… it was only him that prevented that and then he regenerated. I can’t regenerate, but that’s beside the point. I would never let that happen. I don’t want to lose you.”

“So, couldn’t we let them think I was the Bad Wolf and on the verge of annihilating them again?”

“They’d never fall for that… they would know… although…” He gazed off into space, looking like he was working out some complicated conundrum and she waited patiently while he did this. After a while, his eyes snapped wide open as if he were coming out of a trance. “You’re naked…” he said with a smile and she looked down at her self.

“Oh yes, so I am!” He bent his head and captured her lips, but she pulled back. “Oi… don’t you go using sex to throw me off the scent… what were you plotting just then?”

“I was just plotting the beginnings of a plan… but I do have to say, all this delightful nudity is rather distracting… still if you’ve had enough…”

“I didn’t say that!” she replied, just a little too quickly and his face broke into a self satisfied grin.

“Come on… bed!” he whispered, grabbing her hand and turning away from her as he pulled her along with him. It was the first time she had seen the back of his head since the evening before and she gasped out loud in shocked horror.

He swivelled back around to her, worry etching his handsome features, “what?”

“Your hair!” she whispered from behind the hand that she had clapped to her mouth.

His own hand automatically went to the back of his head and felt. His face dropped and he ran into the bathroom, grabbed the shaving mirror and studied the back of his head in the other. Rose observed him from the doorway as he discovered the singed bald patch on the back of his head. He was speechless and she had to bite her tongue so as not to laugh.

“My… my hair!” he said finally, looking completely crestfallen. Her heart swelled inside her chest and she walked up to him, clucking sympathetic noises of reassurance.

“I’m sure you have enough to cover it while it grows….and it will… it hasn’t affected the scalp… it hardly shows…” She pulled him into a comforting embrace and he rested his once beautiful hair upon her shoulder. “Perhaps I can help? Have you any scissors?”

“No!” he said a little too vehemently and lifted his head back up, “Sorry, but I don’t need the help of someone who’s read about it… I need someone with experience in such matters.”

“And who would that be, then?”

“Get some clothes on, Rose; we’re going to pay Jackie Tyler a quick visit…”


	19. Chapter 19

“You want to go visiting… now?”

“Not visiting, Rose… Jackie’s a hairdresser, well, she used to be… she’s the only qualified hairdresser I know here, in fact, she’s the only person I’ve ever let near my hair with a pair of scissors!”

“Not tied to her apron strings at all, then?” She had followed him, still naked into the bedroom and watched him hurriedly getting dressed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Like a little boy running to his mummy…”

“Rose, are you jealous of Jackie?”

“It hardly shows and you’ve gone off into a panic… how shallow… me here... your new lover… naked and you want to rush off at six o’clock in the morning for a hair cut?”

“But… I have a baldy patch…” He had stopped getting dressed and his voice grated into a high pitched squeak as he spoke.

“Ah… mummy kiss it better and put a plaster on it?”

“You are, aren’t you? Jealous! I have a relationship with her and you’re jealous!”

“She’s not my mother!”

“No, no, she isn’t, but she’s as near to it as you’re going to get and that, Rose, is really, really, really okay.”

“Shut up… anyway, besides the favouring the haircut for sex and the whole apron strings thing, aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Rose… sex and haircuts cannot compare... what, what am I forgetting?”

“I’m hiding here from the Daleks, aren’t I? Unless this was all some big fabrication to get me into bed, which would have been totally unnecessary as I would have anyway, you well know it… yes… if I go out without the security blanket of that noisy coral in there aren’t I doomed to be taken again?”

“Ah… hadn’t thought of that…”

“Not coming anyway…” She sat down on the bed, folded her arms and pouted.

“I’m not leaving you alone with the coral!”

“Now who’s jealous?”

“Me… jealous?”

“Yeah… now I come to think of it, you aren’t at all comfortable with her trying to communicate with me and I really don’t think it has anything to do with that Bad Wolf story!”

“It wasn’t a story!”

“You know what I mean and don’t change the subject!”

“It’s okay; I can make you something to hide you from them!”

“Again, diverting…”

“You can talk... pointing those at me!” Rose looked down at herself and then back at him. She shot him a smile that pretty nearly singed him again. 

“Sex, or a haircut… mmm… sex, or a haircut, now, what would I choose?” she teased.

“Alright, you win... but afterwards we are going to Jackie’s so she can sort me out!” He began to reverse his dressing particularly more quickly then he had begun it.

“So, now you’re interested, you think I’m just going to lay on my back, open my le…!” Her words were interrupted as she did, indeed, lye on her back rather roughly as an overexcited part Time Lord landed on her. 

“Oh, yes!” He grinned above her as he parted her legs with his hips and wriggled himself into position.

“Doctor… babies…” He groaned, got off her and sat up. He rummaged in the drawer next to the bed and pulled out a little package.

“When did you get those?” she asked, making no move to move.

“Oh, I’ve had them in there ever since I moved in… Jackie Tyler, she gave me a flat-warming box… an ‘everything a bachelor might need box’… I found the bound copies of Dickens more of a comfort in truth…”

“Until yesterday…”

“Until yesterday… now, where were we?”

“I think I was somewhere around ‘I’m just going to lay on my back an…” He was grinning above her again.

“So, I’m still sexy even with a bald patch then?”

“No complaints from me… is that what all that was about? To tell you the truth, although I think you have really great hair… really great hair… you’d look sort of sexy with one of those close cropped styles, would be nice to stroke…”

“What about my ears?”

“All the better to grab a hold without pulling your hair!”

“I am not, repeat not, taking a number one blade to my hair, no matter what you say!”

“Get on with it, baldy!” And so he did.

A little later, as they lay wrapped in one another and she was stroking his hair absentmindedly, he made noises about going to see Jackie again.

“Listen, matey… for future reference, I sort you out, not Jackie Tyler, right?”

“Oh, I say… double handed jealousy!”

“What?”

“You are jealous that I have a relationship with Jackie because you want one with her and you are also jealous that she has a relationship with me because I belong to you, not her…”

“Shut up… do you?”

“Undoubtedly… always…”

“Soppy git… it makes no difference what you say… I’m not going over there and that’s final.”

“Why… scared?”

“What would I be scared of, you said you can hide me from the Daleks…”

“Scared of the house that is rightfully, or should be, your home… scared of letting your guard down around your… around Pete?”

“No! Why are you trying to bully me into it? Fine, just to show you that it means nothing, I’ll come, but we only stay long enough for Jackie to help you and then we come home, right? Now... what are you looking at me like that for?”

He was grinning from ear to ear, and the sound he had a habit of making when he was particularly pleased rumbled in his throat. “Home… you just called this home…”


	20. Chapter 20

“I wished you’d called beforehand!” Jackie twitched a bit and pulled them inside quickly.

“You never worried about it before, besides Pete did invite me for the weekend?”

“I know, but its different now!” Rose fiddled with the key hanging around her neck and blinked furiously knowing that it was her that had made Jackie react like this.

“He doesn’t want me here?”

“Oh no love, it ain’t that… it’s, oh Rose… how much do you know about us?” The Doctor was looking puzzled and then it suddenly dawned on him. He had completely forgotten something rather important.

“Know about you? Just what I’ve seen in the papers, ain’t taken that much notice till yesterday to tell you the truth, why?”

“I can’t, not without Pete,” Jackie sounded so serious that Rose became quite frightened.

“What’s going on?” She looked from the Doctor’s face to Jackie’s, but neither was going to tell her, that was obvious. 

“Where is he, then, I’ll ask him what the big secret is!” She jutted her chin out defiantly at the Doctor, just to show she really was brave enough. It was at this moment that Jackie noticed the Doctor’s hair.

“Oh, my God!” Her eyes rounded and she jumped out of her seat to get a closer look.

“I sort of set fire to my hair, Jackie, can you salvage it?” Rose said nothing as Jackie started to fuss, but he could see that she was ticking over, like a bomb waiting to go off.

“Salvage? Looks like a number one job from here… although… sit down…” Her fingers explored the patch on the back of his head for a moment. “Hang on…” she left the room.

“Funny how your hair seems to take precedence…” she muttered and he smiled sadly at her.” Won’t you just tell me?” His mouth opened and closed, but whether he was going to tell her was lost as Jackie came back with a little black bag.

“See, if I crop it a little closer around here, and leave all the long stuff on top… well, it had gotten quite long anyway… you’ll need to keep the length here to compensate how short it’ll be back here… a long flat top, I s’pose…”

“You’re going to clip me?” Rose suddenly saw the funny side of it and snorted at him. He gave her a pained look and gently shook his head. 

“Keep still, look I’ll trim first and then you can get the basic idea, just tidy it up with the clippers… you might have to use a bit of gel while its growing out…”

“I can cope with that… you… you won’t touch my side burns, will you?”

“Doctor, at the moment, I’m concentrating on your back burn, now keep still!”

She took out a comb and scissors and started to smooth the ruffled spikes through. Rose became engrossed in the way her hands worked and sidled closer until she was standing right beside them.

Suddenly Jackie stopped, her face darkening a little. “You smell of sex…” she said quietly with the scissors poised just by his ear. There was a stagnant pause which Rose broke with a shrug.

“Really? We had a shower before we come here!”

The Doctor’s face was a picture of pure horror. Worse than any time he had faced any monster.

“I’ll bet you did…” hissed Jackie and the Doctor jumped up and turned to face her, his cheeks already smarting with the anticipation of the unknown.

“Jackie, where is Pete? Perhaps Rose could go and find him?”

“Changing the subject?”

“Is he here?”

“He’s up at the church, but I’m not done with this…”

“The church?”

“There’s one attached to the estate, up the top of the hill to the west, you can see the spire from the back door… Jackie put the scissors down… please?”

Rose left the room quickly, pleased to have caused the diversion and knowing that he wasn’t going to get badly hurt. As she started to climb the hill towards the church, she caught snippets of the argument going on below.

“SHE MADE ME!”

“OH! THAT’S SO YOU… TAKE RESPonsiblity for….” The voices faded away quickly as she kept going up, the key he had given her bouncing on her chest.

She reflected on the moment he had given it to her and smiled to herself.

“What’s this?” she had asked quietly as he dangled it above her palm.

“Key to the door… thought you better had…”

“Why?”

“It’s your home now… Weeelll, that and I’ve made it into a dampener… a perception filter… a disguise. You can move around freely and not be noticed with this on.”

The fact that it had a secondary use hadn’t really mattered. She had a home, a real home. She had never had one of those before.

She reached the churchyard pretty quickly, and looked down at the Tyler Estate, an incredible feeling of power washed over her, which she quickly tried to quash. She turned into the little cemetery and observed the tiny chapel; it was very pretty, even standing on the hill on such a bleak morning.

Rose had no religion. She had been well educated under Dalek protocol, but had never been taught a way of feeling, except by Nonny. She pushed the painful thought of her lost carer away and reflected on the fact that despite her closeted upbringing, she could appreciate ancient architecture as well as the next person.

“Rose?” Pete was standing a few feet away from her, a bouquet of pink carnations in his hand. Rose jumped three feet in the air.

“What you doing creeping around like that, nearly give me a heart attack!”

“What… I mean… why… can I help you?”

“Yeah… they got all strange when we got here and wouldn’t tell me why… said I had to hear it from you…”

“Me? What were they, I mean… I don’t quite…”

“She got all twitchy cos we just come here without ringing and then he cottoned on and she asked what I actually knew about you… her and you, and I said not a lot and then they got really caged and said I should ask you…”

“Ah…”

“Ah… what?”

“Would you care to sit with me and have a nice cup of Jackie’s tea?” He pointed out a flask on the floor by the grave he had obviously been weeding and she nodded dumbly. “Bit windy here, let’s go into the church?”

“Okay…” He placed the flowers upon the grave and picked up the flask. As she followed him, she couldn’t help but read the headstone. It was simple, it just read:

J.A.S.Tyler

Born 1/2/1968

Died 1/2/2007

Tragically taken, a beloved daughter and wife.

 

Rose didn’t stop to look upon her mother’s grave, but her gaze fell upon her father’s retreating back with some interest.


	21. Chapter 21

They sat on a pew at the back of the church and sipped the wonderful sweet tea he poured from the silver flask.

“I buried her here because she loved it so much. She used to sit on the bench at the viewpoint back there and ‘observe the world’ …”

“This isn’t why I…”

“No, I know, but I think you need to hear it all, to fully understand my side at least…”

“Do you really see the point?”

“She never got over you, a child herself… forced to give you up by an overbearing mother… When we found each other again it took a while before she actually told me, three years had passed and I used all the influence I had gathered to send out searches after we learnt that you had been… taken… Rose, I’ve spent so many years thinking about you… searching for you…” He stopped and Rose said nothing, possibly too afraid to show any emotion, her face was dead pan as if she had practised it in the mirror. “She was so eaten up with guilt that it had changed her and even though she was still the girl I loved, there was a part of her I was never able to reach…”

“You really don’t have to do this…”

“I want to! Of course the obvious choice would have been to have more children… we always wanted lots of them and financially I was going places, but she couldn’t… I don’t mean she couldn’t… she wouldn’t. The guilt was too much for her… Then she was killed… worst night of my life… That was when I met Rose and the Doctor the first time… it was awful, we hadn’t been getting on and I never got the chance to make it better…” Rose stood up a little abruptly, but Pete’s large hand covered her arm in contact with her for the first time, his eyes pleading with her. “The least you can do is hear me out… is that too much to ask?”

“It’s not fair…”

“None of it is… it’s no one’s fault…”After a beat, Rose sat back down again and Pete poured her some more tea. “She was killed by Cybermen… an invention by a madman… decided to take…”

“I know of the Cybermen, I was well educated while I… while in captivity…”

“I would never be happy until I had revenged her and tracked every one of them down and rid the world of them, but then one day they just disappeared and it became very evident that there was a weakness in the walls of reality… the dimensions seemed to be merging… we knew this was dangerous from what the Doctor had said before and Mickey and I, we worked on a dimension hopper with our top scientists… we knew that the only way to stop it was to get the Doctor’s help…” Pete stopped, took a breath. “Running into someone you love who you think is long dead… it’s shocking and blinding, particularly when they saw you die twenty years before… particularly when the worlds were at stake… I had no choice but to take Jackie and Rose back with me… they might have died if I didn’t. Rose was broken, she loved him so much… and Jackie and I... we pretty quickly fell for each other all over. She was like the Jackie I first knew…”

“What and that makes it alright? Like exchanging faulty goods?”

“No, Rose, not at all… but I can’t deny it was like we both got a second chance…”

“And a replacement daughter too… how convenient… and she was happy to fit into my shoes, I suppose?”

“Actually that is so far from the truth... she hated me at first… when I first met her, I had given her a hard time and it was me who dragged her here, trapped her here. There was no way that Jackie was going to be without her daughter… I couldn’t have started like that… it took a long time for her to trust me, but she did eventually. When she found out about you, she reopened the search…”

“She… she... knew? About me?”

“I told her one day; don’t know what it was about her, I suppose she’s a good listener… don’t get much of that with Jackie... wouldn’t change her for anything though. When Jackie got pregnant, that’s when we talked…”

“Pregnant?”

“Yes, I would think that is why they sent you up here…”

“You had a baby?”

“A boy, Tony, he’s at a swimming lesson right now… he’ll be home this afternoon…”

“I have a brother?”

“He’s four, five in April… we really didn’t hang about, I wasn’t expecting, but I was so pleased.”

“I have a brother.”

“So, I expect they’ll be worrying about how he’ll react when he sees you… and how you’re going to deal with him believing you’re someone who you ‘re not…”

“I. Have. A. Brother.”

 

*******************

“They’ve been ages…. Do you think we should…?”

“No… just leave them to it… it’s a good sign… you’ve done enough…”

“Two grown up consenting adults…” he said quietly.

“Shut up… don’t push it… there, I think that’s the best I can do… hang about, I’ve got some mousse…” She spent some time shaping his hair and then she nodded, satisfied with her work. “You almost look like your old self, it had gone a bit long and floppy, you know?”

“I liked it like that… hang on…” He jumped up to make his way to the downstairs cloakroom, but was waylaid by the back door being flung open and a little boy emerging at top speed towards said cloakroom.

“Tony?” Jackie squeaked looking desperately at the Doctor as Simon, Tony’s minder, came through the back door. He was originally Tony’s body guard, Pete was paranoid about being the possible victims of kidnappers and it wasn’t any wonder given the circumstances.

He had quickly won both Jackie and Pete’s trust, showing his competence and ability to reach Tony’s needs. He had hit it off with Rose whom he had called his ‘fag hag’ and it was her who had introduced him to his current partner, Jake Simmonds. He was more of a child minder/nanny than anything, but they had all agreed that ‘Minder’ was a better title. In short, he was practically part of the family.

“Sorry Jackie, he’s been feeling queasy, we cut the swimming short…”

It was at this moment that Rose and Pete walked through the kitchen and into the hall. Simon’s jaw dropped to the floor and Tony, emerged from the loo looking a little green.

“Rose?” he croaked.


	22. Chapter 22

“Rose!” Tony ran forward and attached himself to Rose; his arms closed around her waist. Rose flushed a deep pink and everyone looked aghast at each other except Simon, who was staring at Rose as if she had two heads.

“Tony…” she said softly as if trying out the name for the first time. Tony looked up at her, still holding her tightly and then he paled a little more and erupted as only a four year old who is feeling particularly ill can. Seconds later, Rose was covered in slimy regurgitated cornflakes.

Jackie, clucking like a mother hen took him off upstairs, but his cries for Rose didn’t go unnoticed as she winced, watching him being carried up the formidable hall stairway.

“Rose… how on Earth… I mean… I was told... I thought…” Simon stuttered as she looked on at him as if she had never met him, which indeed she hadn’t.

“Look, Simon… you know how it goes… I'll be explaining it all, just right now I need to deal with the immediate… could you just go home? I’ll send message to Jake and he’ll meet you there. Keep quiet and I'll contact you soon enough?”

There was no mistaking Pete’s tone, he was on familiar territory and the control and authority in his tone couldn’t be missed.

“Of course…” Simon took one last look at Rose and left the Tyler Mansion without another word.

Rose spent some time cleaning herself up in the downstairs cloakroom and pushed her sick covered jacket into the laundry basket left in there. Then she returned to the hall.

The three stood in a triangle facing one another. “It’s your call, Rose…” said Pete, his eyes serious but softly understanding.

“I can’t pretend to be who I’m not… besides, a four year old, he’d rumble me in a flash!”

“True… I could just say you were some nutcase who realised how much you look like her and came here to trick us?”

“Is that what you want?”

“No…” The Doctor said nothing; he was just a watcher in another strange set of circumstance.

“What do you want?”

“I would like to know my brother too…”

“Then I give you my permission to explain it to him… I trust you; I know that you aren’t going to hurt him.”

“Just like that?”

“No, not just like that at all…. He isn’t completely ignorant to it all. Rose… she was honest and he loved to hear of her adventures in the other world. I think if you start the conversation, he’s bright enough to fill in the gaps…” There was a silence between them that was almost tangible, an understanding slowly blossoming between them. Like it or not, this Rose was becoming part of this family.

Jackie appeared at the top of the stairs looking worriedly at Rose.

“He ain’t well, he wants to know if you’re real, Rose…”

“Jackie… I’m not about to mess about with an innocent… he’s my brother too!” Jackie looked a little more relieved and quickly went back upstairs to her unwell son.

“I think I might take a quick… after all… I am… you know…a doctor?” The Doctor left the loaded atmosphere of the hall and took the steps two at a time. 

Rose watched the empty trail he left and then looked at her father; eyebrows knitted together, “Is he?”

It was the first time Pete had laughed since the giggling incident back at the flat. Rose smiled along with him, suddenly and without expecting it, getting a feeling of belonging.

“Just be patient with him, Rose, you don’t even need to tell him where… what you’ve been through…” he faltered on his own words, knowing that he should have asked, that there actually hadn’t been time to get her story yet.

“I wouldn’t… might give him nightmares…”

“Did they treat you so very badly?”

“I was warm, I was fed, I was educated. They even found me my own special minder that simulated some kind of maternal nurturing for me. I never got to see daylight or feel the wind on my cheeks until I escaped… I was kept under lock and key, like a lab rat… it wasn’t ideal, but I suppose it could’ve been worse…”

“I’m sorry…”

“Yeah, well, you can’t keep saying that… it won’t change it.” 

There was another lull and then Jackie appeared over the banisters. “Doctor says he’s fine, water only and lots of telly in bed… I ask you telly in bed; does he know anything about bringing up kids? He’s still asking for you…”

Rose looked at Pete and he nodded gently back at her, “I think you’re a natural… it’ll be fine…”

“Do you want me to come in?” asked Jackie as she passed her on the landing.

“Do you mind if you don’t… the Doctor'll stay with us, make sure I keep within acceptable boundaries…? I might get self conscious with you there and that’ll be no good for him…”

“I can understand that…” It was obvious Jackie wanted to say more but didn’t know how. Rose squeezed her arm and nodded as she headed towards the open door up the corridor.

Tony was sat up in bed, the Doctor beside him, completely comfortable with each other.

“Rose!” squeaked Tony, his pallid face lighting up again.

“Hello, Tony… can I come in?”

“Course you can, well unless you’re worried you might catch a lurgie? I was sick all over you, wasn’t I?” He looked so proud of himself that she couldn’t help but smile at him.

“You were… listen, are you up to a bit of a chat?”

“Uh-oh…”

“Why uh-oh?”

“They told me you weren’t coming back and I just liked to go in there to play… I didn’t mean to spill that stuff and when I tried to clean it up…”

“Tony, that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about…”

“What is it then, Rose?”

“Well, how much do you know about your mum and dad?”

“Wha’?”

“About parallels…”

“That’s where you’ve been, isn’t it?”

“No, you see, Tony, I am Rose, but I’m not the Rose you know…”

“The Rose you know, Tony came from and went back to the alternative dimension…” The Doctor had been sitting quietly beside him and finally spoke up. Tony’s brow furrowed for a beat, all sorts of questions beginning to form in his head.

“Your parents…”said Rose

“Yes, you… the other you, she told me… I couldn’t understand why she kept calling Daddy Pete and so one day she told me. My mum and her, they came from another world same as this one and they found Daddy and the other world’s Daddy and this world’s Mummy had gone to heaven, so they were happy to find each other and then they got me and lived happily ever after!” Rose smiled at him for the innocent fairy tale he had made it all into and nodded.

“So, who do you think I am, then?” Tony’s frowned and looked thoughtful.

“Well, if you aren’t that Rose, you are still Rose. Are you the Rose from this world? I always wondered where you were… I asked Daddy if you were in heaven too, but he didn’t seem to understand… so, are you her?”

“Yes, I am… and I didn’t know about you until an hour ago, so we have an awful lot to talk about.”

“Okay… did you know I’m a brilliant swimmer?”

“No… perhaps you could teach me?”

“What, you can’t swim, a grown up girl like you? Hey, do you know what?”

“What?”

“I have two sisters called Rose!”


	23. Chapter 23

Rose was sitting outside in the back garden. This was a little walled garden just off the kitchen, and it was a peaceful spot. Despite the cold day, the sun was shining and the shrubs planted all around still held many leaves of differing and fantastic hues of oranges and reds.

Her thoughts were jumbled; her head had gone into an overdrive that she couldn’t have contemplated less than two days before. Emotions she didn’t even know she had were careening through her, and she almost ached from the exhaustion of it all.

“Rose?” 

Her heart lifted at the tone of his voice. This man who had turned her life upside down. He was everything to her and that was frightening in itself, because so far as she was concerned she had only ever lost everything she had been meant to care about. “Hello…” She turned her face up to him and read the concern across it.

“It was too much for you…” He sat down on the bench beside her and grabbed her hands in his own.

“Well…” She stopped searching for the right words. “Maybe… this has been an awful lot to take in so quickly, but things happen.”

“I should have protected you from it, should have paced it…”

“I think I was just as pushy about certain things… more…” She smiled cheekily and he blinked back at her. “Tony awake yet?”

“No… you were so brilliant with him, you know?”

“It was weird, I’ve never had anything to do with children before, but I found I could talk to him on his level without feeling uncomfortable…”

“You were a child yourself once, true the circumstances were extreme… but your own mind would remember the thought patterns on some level.”

“What happens now?”

“What do you mean, Rose?”

“Those people in there… I feel like, I don’t know… like I’m walking into someone else’s life… it would be so easy to do, but it’s wrong, I know it is and not only that… I’ve only just started to really discover who I am!”

“Rose… listen… those people are never going to forget the other Rose, nor will I, but that doesn’t mean you have no place here… you were here in spirit before her. Pete is your father, and through circumstances beyond both of your control you never had the chance… but think about it, if it hadn’t been for Rose, he may easily have walked past you in the street and you wouldn’t even have known you had a father! There was never anything between me and Rose… not this me anyway and in some…” A hand had extracted itself from his grip and covered his mouth, he stopped, obviously; and stared into her eyes, fearful of what she was going to say next.

“It’s okay… I’m not about to walk out on this new… well, not if you’re not anyway… I think I’m just scared of losing my identity and becoming someone else… but they all seem so… lovely… Tony… Jackie… even… Pete… I want to get to know them, I really do. But I’m scared, it terrifies me. I know I can do it with you to help me and that scares me too… I haven’t been dependant on anyone since I escaped… and the other thing that scares me is... am I putting you all in danger?”

“Danger?”

“If the Daleks were priming me to become this wolf of destruction and are still hunting me, then surely anyone who I'm close to becomes a target too?”

“At the moment, you’re well hidden and they have no possible way of tracking you… but we'll have to deal with them, because they aren’t just going to go away… but you have me now…”

“And what if I lose you… what if they exterminate you? I couldn’t cope with that!”

“See, here’s the thing… I may not be the Time Lord, but I am still the Doctor… and Daleks… well, let’s just say they do experience some feelings and I can instil terror into the most battle scarred Dalek with just the mention of my name!” He didn’t say anything for quite some time and Rose tried to compute the very serious words he had just spoken.

“I’m so tired…” She sighed and rested her head against his shoulder. It was lunchtime, but he knew what she meant.

“I think we should go home… I need to check on the coral anyway… Listen Rose, about the identity thing, I’ve been thinking about what you said and I can completely understand but I think for now it would be a very good idea if you did become Rose Tyler… your family are never going to confuse you… Torchwood will all be briefed… but so far as the public eye are concerned it would be altogether much easier. And as far as the Daleks go, well, that would be confusion in itself. They wouldn’t know if you were you or you were her…”

Rose contemplated his words and sighed. “It’s like the moment I met you, my life has been mapped out. Like I have no control.”

“Rose, our lives are mapped out from the day we come into existence. This hand… this hand here? I believe that it was severed from its original body for a reason… me… and I was bought here for you… it sounds so Barbara Cartland… but I know it… I think you do too… it certainly explains our instantaneous reaction to one another, don’t you think?”

“Love at first sight is premeditated?” she smiled, teasing and he shrugged it off with one of his flashing grins. “I just thought... if I become Rose Tyler, then I lose a few years, don’t I? Isn’t she younger than me?”

“Yes… she’s twenty five now…”

“Goodness… much more and you could be accused of robbing the cradle!”

“Ah, you see, that’s where I win hands down, so to speak…”

“What do you mean?”

“Weeell… technically, I’ve only been in existence for a year and a bit…”


	24. Chapter 24

Jackie had put up a bit of a fight, willing them to stay for the weekend in hope that it might turn into forever, but the Doctor was firm. He wanted to get Rose home, she was drained and he had some research he wanted to get on with while she rested.

The flat was untidy but such a relief for her to walk in to after her spectacularly busy morning.

“You should go and lie down; I’ll bring you something to eat in bed…”

“Want to cuddle up with you…” she yawned, snuggling into him and he pulled his arms about her enclosing her in a tight grip. They stood like this for a while, enjoying the peace and calm, then she pulled back and looked up at him, “Forgot to say, your hair looks pretty darned hot!”

“Rose…” he mock-warned her.

“What?” she answered, eyes rounded in equal mock-innocence. Two pairs of eyes searched one another’s and then two smiles broke across two faces. They ran to the bedroom, discarding items of clothing en route and finally collapsing half naked and giggling onto the bed.

“I’ve been thinking about this all morning…” he whispered as she wriggled beneath him almost too eager to get the lovemaking started.

“All morning? Between convincing me to become Rose Tyler and Tony throwing up all over me and having your hair sorted out?”

“Oh yes… all morning…”

“Doctor… the coral…”

“What? What about her?”

“She’s not singing… is that usual…? I mean, I only just noticed how quiet it is… but she isn’t making a sound…” The Doctor had stopped kissing her neck and appeared to be concentrating very hard.

“Oh blast!” he said finally and pulled himself up and off her. She mewled at the loss of his skin against hers and watched as he strode naked out of the bedroom towards the bathroom. Once he was out of sight, she was compelled to get up and follow him unable not to be seeing him.

The laboratory was a mess, bottles and files emptied everywhere, glass broken, computer screens smashed.

The bowl in which the coral had sat was empty, just a puddle of gloopy blue liquid remained, the naked Doctor stood pale and shocked observing the mess.

“What’s happened?” she asked. He blinked as if suddenly becoming aware of her and sniffed the air. To her horror and fascination, he strode over to the blue gloop and scooped a handful up. His tongue flickered out at it like a lizard at a fly and he smacked his lips together.

“Quayine…”

“What? But… how… the doors are in tact?”

“Three of them and something else… can’t quite make out what… transported straight in here. They took the coral. It's safe though, unharmed.”

“You can tell all that just by tasting that gunk?”

“Not just that, Rose. I can smell them and I can hear their echo… the coral wasn’t even distressed… I get the feeling that someone was gentle with her… a telepath bought against her will…”

“I thought here was safe?”

“You’re safe so long as the coral is and she is, for now… What I hadn’t worked out was that they would be able to detect that you had been here after you left and that she might need your protection as much as you might need hers…”

“That doesn’t make me feel so brilliant… now what do we do?”

“I’m going to have to get Torchwood onboard… I’m calling Pete… we’d better get dressed.”

“Torchwood… really?”

“Rose, that coral is very, very important and in the wrong hands… well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. Let’s just hope they don’t work it out. I’m going after it.”

“You mean we’re going after it?”

“I can’t risk it, Rose… I’m going to transport right into the Daleks hive, following the Quayines echoes. I’d be taking you right back to the place you’ve been running from all these years.”

“So you’re just gonna leave me here? You think I’m safe, really? Surely the safest place for me is beside you and as close to the coral as I can be?”

“Rose, I…”

“I’m coming with you, I know my way around there and I’m trained now. What if you died up there? What if you didn’t... and you came back and I had gone?”

“What if this is all a trap to get you up there, Rose?”

“Then I have you… the Doctor… right?”

Pete arrived pretty promptly accompanied by just four of his expert team who all knew the Doctor very well and who had all been briefed about the new Rose Tyler. It didn’t stop their surprise at first seeing her, particularly when she had been back up to the loft and got out Rose’s Torchwood uniform and was now wearing it.

The transporters looked old and bashed and Rose began to feel a little skeptical about things. “They aren’t exactly state of the art, are they?”

“No, but because of that, they’re pretty unobtrusive, they won’t be picked up so easily… it isn’t exactly a comfortable way to travel, but its fast.”

“Why are there four of them?”

“Four of us have to go; we have to shadow the echo… three Quayine and the telepath. Jake and Pete are coming with us.”

Rose was briefed and to everyone’s relief, she cottoned on quickly and seemed to know her way around what a mission such as this might entail, even adding her own thoughts toboot.

Finally, the four of them donned the transporters and stood in a small circle. The Doctor then produced a slim cylindrical device from his pocket and pressed it to each transporter. The device buzzed and flashed blue at each press of the button and each transporter glowed yellow and flickered into life.

The Doctor stood opposite Rose, a familiar feeling of dread pulling in his stomach as her eyes met him steadily. She nodded ever so slightly and he blinked, his heart hammering with both fear and love in equal measure. The four pressed their buttons at exactly the same time and de-materialised from the safe little flat that was now their home leaving the remaining three members of the team to clear up the mess and await instruction from their superiors.


	25. Chapter 25

The blood rushed to her head and it felt like her stomach had been left behind, but the journey was extremely fast and Rose landed in the corridors of the Dalek ship with a huge intake of breath alongside the small group that had disappeared from the flat just moments before.

“Alright?” The Doctor whispered, his eyes studying her to make sure she was coping, she felt a twinge of annoyance. She had been travelling around this universe for some years and was perfectly used to this sort of thing. It didn’t stop her swooning a little as she tried to move a little too quickly. The Doctor caught her around the waist. “Steady, you need to acclimatise before you start…” For a moment she felt like pulling back, hostility towards him that she wasn’t familiar with niggling at her and then she pushed it aside, feeling his arms around her and knowing she didn’t want it any other way.

“Hostile atmosphere…” she muttered.

“Yes… you just have to push it away mentally as best you can or we’ll all get nowhere... all of you…” He directed the last at the other two who were in a little silent squabble of their own. “Anything else, though Rose?”

She stopped and listened to the darkness around them and then her eyes lit up. “The coral!”

“Clever girl… she sounds fine… we just have to find her… and get back as quickly as we can…”

“What?” All three faces rounded on him as they reacted in unison.

“You don’t think we’re going to face these Daleks now, do you?”

“Yes!” Again, all together.

“Calm down… we need a plan and I can’t plan anything here, not in this atmosphere, we agreed, rescue the coral and regroup!”

“Non-Rose-ny!” A voice hissed behind them and they swung around, two Torchwood handguns at the ready, to see a strange humanoid creature standing in an open doorway a few feet away. She was bright blue with antennae protruding from her face. She had a soft gentle countenance to her that instantly infused another with a feeling of complete trust.

“Nonny?”

“Non-come… quickly-ny!” she whispered urgently and indicated they enter the room she was hovering in.

Rose didn’t hesitate, she ran towards the creature before anyone could stop her and the Doctor followed her without pause for thought.

Nonny shut the door quietly as all four entered and raised a blue clawed finger to her lips. They stood is silence for some time, listening to nothing and then satisfied, the creature turned to Rose, her arms outstretched and Rose fell into them with a strangled sob.

“Non-Rose, what did I tell you? I am not worth the shedding of such tears-ny!”

“They told me you had been… that you were dead!”

“Non-their experiments are cruel; they said it was necessary, if I did not leave you they would have exterminated me right before your beautiful brown eyes-ny!”

“I was scared… they were so hard on me after you left… soon as I saw the chance, I ran!”

“Non-I know, it was me who accidently fell into the power buttons that day, I would have been exterminated on the spot if they didn’t believe that I would have some use in tracking you-ny.”

“And were you?” Rose asked softly, doubt now filling her voice. Nonny didn’t reply, her eyes had focused upon the rest of them and she looked at Rose expectantly. “Sorry, Nonny, this is… Jake? Yeah, Jake and that’s Pete and this, here…is the Doctor…” Nonny’s eyes widened and she drew back from them, in particular, the Doctor.

“Non-the Doctor-ny?”

“Yes, that’s me... the Doctor, you’ve heard of me then?”

“Non-and what is he to you, Rose-ny?”

“Well… he’s my… he’s…”

“Her significant other… pleasure to meet you, I’ve heard so much about you… I must say you are a long way from home!”

“Non-home-ny?”

“Malcassairo… thousands of miles from here… were you captured?”

“Non-you know my people-ny?”

“I should say, me and the Malmooth’s we go way… forwards!”

“Non-but this is impossible-ny!”

“Nonny, what’s wrong? We’ve come to stop this, you will be free of them… we just need to find the coral and…” But the Doctor moved forward, facing up to Nonny.

“You can’t leave, can you? You have to stay.” Nonny looked sadly at Rose, her eyes filling with tears. “You have obliged yourself… to what? A Dalek?”

“Non-no-ny!”

“Quayine?”

“Non-no… he is an inventor here… he is a good man… but the plan to raise Rose was his idea… I told him it was wrong, told him she was an innocent, but he knows something of timelines and he was so very keen to have her here-ny.”

“That’s why you came and took the coral, Nonny? So that Rose would follow it right back here?”

“Non-I did my duty to my master-ny…”

“But not to Rose, the child you raised?”

“Non-but he tells me, she will be safe, he will not harm her and I believe him… the Daleks make him do this thing, he has no choice-ny. Non-Rose, trust me, I have always done the best for you… shall I make us all a nice cup of tea-ny?”

“Tea, Nonny? Why do you think that tea will solve everything? You are part of this? I thought you were… I mean, I thought you… forget it. Where’s the coral?”

“Non-Rose-ny?”

“I don’t want to hang about, Doctor, read her mind, she’s the telepath. You’ll get the corals whereabouts from there!” She pointed at Nonny’s large blue head.

“Rose…”

“Just don’t! Everything I ever had was a lie… I didn’t have much as a child, but this… insect... here, needs exterminating… she’s a hideous parasite feeding off other people’s emotions, for what? To impress a man?”

“Calm down, Rose… it isn’t her fault. It’s in her biological make up, she devotes herself to someone, not necessarily a man and not necessarily sexually. She really has no choice in it.”

“I thought she was devoted to me!”

“Non-I care so very deeply for you, my little one, but I obliged myself to my master a long time before we got you-ny.”

“Nonny, this master that you speak of… who exactly is he? What is his name?”

“Non-his name-ny? Non-he doesn’t exactly have a name; he has a title that he goes by-ny.”

“And that would be?” The Doctor’s voice was very soft as he questioned her, but she didn’t have time to answer as the door swung noisily open and a familiar figure stood in the doorway, a smile flickering across his handsome face.


	26. Chapter 26

There was a long silence as every face turned to the man in the doorway. No one but Nonny appeared to recognise him and she gave away her reaction very obviously by turning a bright shade of green.

“Well… this looks cosy… don’t mind me… are you all in here hiding? I mean, because if they discover you, you know what’s going to happen? Nonny, why don’t you introduce me to your guests?”

Nonny, didn’t get to answer, the Doctor stepped forward, practically shielding the others from the man in the doorway.

“This is Rose… the child you stole so you could perform some kind of experiment on her? That there is her father, Pete Tyler and that’s Jake Simmonds… and I’m the Doctor. Who might I have the not so great pleasure of addressing?”

“If you’re the Doctor, then you know exactly who I am… and I know Rose, she doesn’t know me, I was never allowed near her… I didn’t steal her, I was bought here for the same reason she was…” The man was now circling them in an almost predatory way. This seemed to overexcite Nonny, whose breathing was becoming very rapid. “Tea, Nonny?” he asked her softly and she nodded happily, fervently.

“Non-yes, master-ny.”

“And I did tell you not to call me that, didn’t I?” Nonny was obviously too keyed up to even answer and scuttled off to a side room that at a guess was probably a kitchen area. The man had looked over all three of the men by now and had settled in front of the Doctor. He was slightly taller, slightly broader and slightly darker than the Doctor, but together they made an impressive duo. “Doctor?”

“That’s me…”

“It wasn’t supposed to happen quite like this, their plans are scuppered, well they will be if we keep our wits about us!”

“You’ve been experimenting on Rose, kept her from her family all those years and you think we’re going to trust you?”

“You don’t know me?”

“I know someone who looks like you… but you couldn’t possibly be him… he wouldn’t do this… side with Daleks!”

“But, I told you, I’m their prisoner too, everything that I have done, they made me do, I might not be the man you know, but I am still that man.”

“They made you? The man I know would never have let them, the man I know would rather have died unless… unless they promised him something? Did they promise you something?”

“I don’t know what you mean… are you accusing me of selling out? Isn’t it natural to want to live?”

“Ah yes, but for how long?”

“I don’t know what you mean…” came the all too speedy response, he moved off, back to the others, studying them again, studying the dislike on Rose and Pete’s faces and moving off quickly, only to settle beside Jake. “I get why their here, but what’s a nice face like yours doing risking his neck?” Jake actually blushed.

“Stop it…” muttered the Doctor.

“Oh, its okay, I don’t mind!” said Jake a little too quickly, and then turned to back to the man practically simpering. “Orders are orders… besides, Rose and the Doctor are my friends…”

“Now that’s so commendable, I like your loyalty.”

“I said stop it…”

“What, Doctor, can’t a man even say hello?”

“I just can’t believe it… alternate me, alternate universe, alternate Rose and yet the banter and the Daleks still keep on coming!” muttered the Doctor again. There was no time for anyone to reply to this as Nonny re-entered, tea forgotten and in a panic.

“Non-they are coming… quickly, Rose, Captain, Doctor… all of you… you must hide-ny!”

“Whoa God… Daleks… come on; you sorta gotta trust me now, don’t you?”

And this was true; the four followed the unlikely pair into a maze of corridors and secret passages along pathways too narrow for any Dalek to pass.

The Doctor and Rose hurried side by side and as they did, she turned to him on an aside. “Who the hell is he?” But the man turned around and flashed a cheesy grin before the Doctor had a chance to respond.

“Captain Jack Harkness, ma'am, I am so pleased to finally meet you!”

“Stop it!” puffed the Doctor as Nonny led them into what appeared to be an insect’s lair.

“It ain’t much, but we call it home... Nonny built it herself. We can hide here; they don’t even know these tunnels exist.”

They all scrambled inside and Nonny busied herself sealing up the doorway. They crawled through on hands and knees before the cramped tunnel led out into a wide open space. It looked very much like an ordinary human dwelling once you were inside and Nonny looked over the moon to have guests in her home. “Non-now I really make tea-ny!” she announced a little too eagerly.

“That’s a good idea, although, Nonny, use the other milk for this bunch?”

“Non-really, I have an abundance… my tea is so much better with… as you wish Captain-ny…” she moved off to the little kitchen area and busied herself. Jack indicated the sitting area and all but Pete moved towards it.

“Pete?” the Doctor questioned him but Pete was staring at Jack, a muscle twitching in his cheek.

“How can you sit with him, knowing what he’s done… he took my child, the baby I didn’t even know about! He deserves to die… I should…”

“Pete, he says he was made to do the things he did, so let’s hear him out? I’m prepared to give him that chance…” It was Rose who placated him, a shy hand upon his arm and he nodded, tears in his eyes as she led him to one of two sofas in the rather comfortable, if eclectic, seated area.

All eyes were upon Jack who suddenly didn’t seem quite so confident; he cleared his throat and began.

“They came for me when I first recruited at the Time agency it was the fifty first century and I had no other prospects; I was young and easily impressed. I came willingly, but when I found out what they wanted, what they were capable of, I tried to leave. They wouldn’t let me, of course… even if I hadn’t of come willingly, they would have taken me. At seventeen, I was cocky and sure of myself, clever with it. I had no idea what they wanted from me, but they talked a good talk with me, wanted to keep me on board. They told tale of other places… the same as this one, other dimensions, identical parallels, they told me fairy tales of little girls who turned wolf and of men who became gods. They told me I was such a man there in my future, an immortal. They fed it to me until I lived and breathed it. When they told me that they had located the baby Rose, well I suppose that’s when the doubts began. Nonny befriended me, looked after me, showed me a different side to this place. There are many living here, all types, the Daleks have no need for them so don’t see them. I knew enough about the other Rose Tyler to allow experiments to seem as if they were going on… it was me who suggested Nonny as a nanny for her and they bought it. Everything that went on here was premeditated to make sure that Rose was never spoilt, never turned into the weapon they intended her to be. We all helped her escape that day. We’ve all been trying to avoid her capture since…”

“All?”

“Our make shift conglomeration… I have recruited a small army, an uprising. We have waited for the revolution to come and it appears that day has come…”

“But Jack, you know you all have little chance against a single Dalek let alone… exactly how many are there?”

“Just four… they were sent across the void on their special mission… and the only thing we had going for us until now was the element of surprise…”

“Until now?”

“Yes… now we have you… The Doctor…”


	27. Chapter 27

“But Jack… I need more, though… you say there are four of them? Do they have a name… names?”

“Names… they’re Daleks, Doctor!”

“Back in the other universe, there were this band of Daleks… a cult… they were sent out on secret missions across space and time, it’s a long shot and I saw the destruction of all four members of the Cult Of Skaro, but I do seem to remember that there was talk of others…”

“Doctor, I really have no idea what you’re on about…” Jack shook his head, but Nonny was looking agitated again.

“Non-I have heard them talk with one another and I have seen words upon the screens that might have meaning to you-ny…”

“Go on…”

“Non-would the word Kaled mean anything-ny? Non-it was typed on all reports Kaled Sarcina and I heard them address one another… they are Thesk, Trok, Soko and Geng-ny.”

“Kaled was what they were before they were… changed… the organic being that they once were…” The Doctor had paled significantly. “They never go... always infiltrating everything… I can never be rid of them!”

“They used to be living beings?” Rose looked a little stunned at this.

“Used to be, but Rose, all emotion was taken from them, inside that shell is what remains of them… these were specially trained, elite groups taught to think outside the box instead of following orders and exterminating on the spot… there is nothing that can be saved of these wretched creatures.”

“So, they were commissioned to cross the void… quite a feat in itself… how would they do that?” asked Jack.

“Void ship probably, little one, they weren’t meant to be going back, just had this mission…”

“Kamikaze Daleks?”

“In a way, they don’t have fear, so death wouldn’t bother them, not even a lifetime stranded on another dimension…”

“So, how do we deal with them?”

“Jack… Jack? That’s not even your name… how did you come by it? I know how the Jack I know came by it… but not you… you couldn’t have, not if they’ve had you here all these years?”

“I know, but they just kept on and on at me, insisting that was my name… they used all sorts of methods… I was brainwashed…. can’t even remember what my real name was anymore… is that common?”

“I happens, obviously what they intended… they wanted you to be that man and I suppose their way of simulating it would start with your name… what else did they make you do?”

“Don’t ask… it's okay… I came here an adult, well practically; I haven’t felt badly treated… it’s been an experience…”

“While you’re exchanging life stories, we could be dealing with the threat, surely?” snapped Pete, suddenly unable to bear listening any more.

“We have to locate the coral first…” replied the Doctor and again Nonny began to nod.

“Non-I know where they are keeping it-ny. Non-they expect impossible things of it-ny. Non-they have installed it into a growth incubator up on level three and have pushed it up to maximum power-ny.”

“Why do you say it’s impossible, Nonny?” asked the Doctor, trying to sound calm but looking quite the opposite.

“Non-I’m afraid I may have messed up the formula when we transported her… its okay, she told me the right mix and I asked if she could take a little addition just to ease off growth until I told Jack-ny. Non-I was just on my way to find him when I heard you land in the corridor-ny.”

“Can you get us there without being seen?”

“Nonny has built many tunnels in and out of this ship, of course she can!”

“Non-no, Thesk is there on constant watch, it monitors the progression-ny. Non-it would be too dangerous to risk anyone going up there; it would mean instant extermination-ny.”

“Except what if I took Rose up there…? I mean how excited would they get then? She’s been running from them for fifteen years!”

“This was what this was all about in the first place, wasn’t it?” snarled Pete, getting off his feet and starting towards Jack. Rose and the Doctor also jumped from their seats to stop him.

“There is no way I’m letting her near them!” the Doctor said, his voice at such a level it might have frightened most. 

But Rose wasn’t most. “It makes sense, though… it would be a diversion… they would be so busy with me, they might not notice you. You could snatch the coral from right under their… plungers…”

“Brilliant plan, Rose, except you missed out a rather vital detail… I may get the coral, but they get you?”

“I escaped before… could do it again…”

“You really think you’d get the opportunity… they’d have you tied and literally connected to the coral until they reached their goal… for the rest of your life, Rose… they’ll stop at nothing… as far as they’re concerned you’re ready, they just have to concentrate on the coral and though Nonny has bought time, they’ll figure it out. It’s what they do. What was it you contaminated the formula with, Nonny?”

“Non-milk, sir-ny.”

“Please, call me Doctor, I can’t abide, sir. Milk, harmless enough and innocent enough to fox Daleks, they’ll be looking for something much more potent. They’ll have concluded it was booby trapped.” Jack sniggered and Nonny looked down, her colouring turning bright green again.

“You think this is funny?” Pete was clearly worried about Rose and disturbed by Jack’s presence.

“Pete, you need to calm down. We need as much help with this as we can. Jack’s useful, our man on the inside, if you will. Clearly, he was as much a victim as Rose.”

“It’s true… me and Nonny, we looked after her, made sure she stayed her all that time. Helped her escape, even and boy was I in trouble that day… I had to persuade them I was tracking her. I recruited the worst Quayines ever, bumbling bunch of idiots, the Daleks fail to notice those sorts of details…” Pete didn’t smile, but he relaxed a little.

“They really were…” agreed Rose, nodding her head, a small smile crossing her mouth.

“So, the Daleks trust you… you hold an important role within the whole locating Rose business?”

“I would say so… I pretend I’m useful.”

“And there are a few life forms wandering around this ship you said?”

“Yep, our own little conglomeration… why, what you got in mind?”

“A plan emerges… Jack Harkness, I never thought I’d see the day where I’d say I’m so glad there’s an alternate you!”


	28. Chapter 28

“Right, so we’re all on board? Every one of us is working together… there are no enemies here!”

“Yes, Doctor!” came the mumbled response.

“Our aim is to get the coral and outwit the Daleks… we must protect Rose at all times. If we cooperate with Jack, then, we will all be safe… we need to look like we’re the downtrodden masses that have been banished to the lower floors… his captives…”

“But you know I’ve always been working on a way to freedom… these Earth dwellers can offer it to us if we help… maybe one day eventually get some of you home…” added Jack.

The motley group in front of Jack and the Doctor mumbled amongst themselves and Rose, who had stayed tucked away in the kitchen, shook her head, wondering why this crowd weren’t more enthusiastic about the Doctor’s plan.

“This is our home!” a tall, hairless blue Crespallion spoke up. He looked less than interested and thoroughly miserable.

“Come on, Nigel, you know I’d never let you down…” said Jack and was rewarded by a reprimanding look at Nonny. “You’d all rather stay here, living your lives hiding in the shadows?”

“Sometimes, the shadows are safer then the sunlight…” was the reply. Obviously, Nigel was their elected spokesperson. “We’ll all be killed instantly…” 

Rose stepped from the kitchen and walked through the large group, causing a stir that rippled right around them. Most of them, she had encountered throughout her time as a captive here, some she had not, but it was obvious they all knew who she was.

“Don’t you believe in good?” she addressed them when she had made her way to the Doctor’s and Jack’s side. “Would you rather hide in the darkness just because it was easier? I was you once, I didn’t know any better and yet, I always did… I knew I had to get out of here and find a better life and now I’m back and I want to help you… we want to help you!”

Murmurs were travelling around the throng of creatures and people that she stood before. The words ‘she has returned!’ and ‘the prophecy will be fulfilled!’ ran amongst them until the Doctor stepped forward again and all was silent.

“As you know, the Daleks are here for a reason... they aren’t just here to dwell and eat and sleep and live lives like you, no, they are here plotting and have been doing this for nearly thirty years… you have all played a part in their big plan… and the end game is to take over the universe… it always is… they will stop at nothing… they will wipe out whole civilisations… you are all in danger… your families are all in danger.. indeed your home planets are all in danger!”

Nigel was pushed forward and his eyes didn’t come away from Rose as he asked the question. “How do you think we can fight these things? They are all powerful... one of them could wipe out a planet in less then a day!”

“We don’t fight them now what we need to do now is get something that’s very important to them that they stole from us and get off here as quickly as possible. You need to cause a diversion so we can get it.”

“The Daleks will surely kill us if we do that… when they know that their treasure is gone, they will be furious and will take their revenge upon us!” A fresh whisper of heckling began again.

“Not if you all come with us!” Jack looked at the Doctor in surprise. 

A buzz went around the crowd, and Pete stepped up, grabbing the Doctor to one side where a heated discussion ensued. Jack and Rose stood before the waiting audience, embarrassment quite clear at the hissed argument between Pete and the Doctor.

“I don’t care about Earth protocol Pete, we have to help them… give them sanctuary… about bloody time the world started getting educated to all things alien… “

“There must be thirty of them here, Doctor, where do you think we’re going to put them?”

“Says the man who lives in a twenty-bedroomed mansion with just his wife and son!”

“Surely, you’re not suggesting… no, Jackie would hang draw and quarter me!”

“Pete, most of the time I go along with what you say because I agree with you, but right here, right now… I’m pulling rank. All those who want to get their first taste of freedom will be coming with us!” He didn’t wait for Pete to respond, but pulled away from him and back to the listening crowd.

“If you want to stay here and remain captives for the rest of what I can guarantee will be your shortened lives... if you do, then leave, go back to your hidey holes and… hide! Anyone who wants to fight for their freedom as Jack has been speaking to you of for quite some time, then stay!”

Whispers went around them and two or three left without looking back. A young couple stood and approached the Doctor. They looked like humans at first glance, but as they approached their pale skin seemed to shimmer, their eyes had a slight yellow glow to them and their hair was very dark and long and very unlike human hair.

“Imspalina!” said the Doctor, his eyes alight and an excited smile finally crossing his mouth.

“May, we have the honour of speaking with you on a rather delicate matter, My Lord?” asked the male in a low and honeyed voice.

“Of course… ask away!”

“I am prepared to take arms against the monsters, but my soul mate as you may see, is heavy with our offspring… I cannot risk her, My Lord…” Indeed, now that he had said, it was very evident that the female was very heavily pregnant.

“No, Filo, I stay… you cannot send me away!” she hissed.

“Adeara, you want to lose our child… the one we have strived so hard to keep?”

“You won’t have to go anywhere; we aren’t going to actually fight, standing up to them is fighting them… I just want you all to create a diversion that all four Daleks must be needed for and while that is going on, I shall be transporting you all down and Rose and Jack will be getting the… very important thing I spoke of.”

“Rose and Jack?” Pete was beside the Doctor again, that look on his face... again.

“Rose can sense it, it will know her and Jack knows this place…”

“I’m with them!”

“No, Pete, you need to be with me, we have to get the transporter up and running if we’re to beam all these people down!”

“Non-I will go with Rose and Jack to make sure all is well, if that will please her father-ny?”

The Doctor looked at Pete, his eyebrow cocked in question and Pete sighed heavily and nodded, a muscle churning in his cheek.

“Right then, Doctor, how do you suggest we cause a serious diversion that will bring those pepper pots running without extermination being an option?” asked Jack.

“Oh, I think Jake here might have to go and start playing with matches… very good at controlled fires, is that one… right, Jake?”

“Understood, Boss…”

“You’re going to start a fire aboard this ship with all these innocent people on board… have you really thought this through?” asked Rose, a tiny bit of doubt now creeping into her tone for the very first time.

“It will be completely under control… nothing to worry about... we know what we’re doing… I mean, what could possibly go wrong?”


	29. Chapter 29

The whole group followed Jack as if they had been captured by him and headed towards the main floors of the space ship where the Daleks remained monitoring the activities of the Earth below.

The Doctor, Pete and Rose waited a floor lower and Jake took off to other areas to await his signal.

Rose and the Doctor stared at each other through the shadows… their eyes talking to each other until Pete began to feel extremely uncomfortable and moved away using the pretence of having a listen as an excuse.

Once alone, they fell against each other, the worry between them almost tangible. They held each other tightly for quite some time before they pulled apart and looked up at each other, noses virtually touching.

“You don’t take any risks, Rose, you know they’re after you… and whether you’re prepared to lose your head or no, there are people up there who could die if you do!”

“And you aren’t going to go all Errol Flynn on me at all?”

“Errol Flynn? Good grief Rose, what did they teach you here?”

“Could hardly call you Jack Sparrow, could I? Not with that Captain Jack swashbuckling about!”

“You like him?”

“He’s alright… don’t fancy him, if that’s what you’re getting at!”

“This conversation seems to be taking a turn; I wanted to tell you…”

“It’s alright… it’ll be fine, I know what we gotta do, as soon as the alarm goes up, you’re off to the transporter room and I’m with Jack and Nonny… the Coral is close… she seems frightened…”

“Frightened?”

“Not exactly frightened…. more apprehensive… nervous… you know? What was it you were gonna say before?”

“Sorry?”

“I interrupted you… how was that sentence gonna end, Doctor?”

He stopped for a beat, studying every part of the face he knew so well and then he bent his head lower still. “I… I love you…”

She pulled back a little, smiled almost smugly and nodded, “quite right too!” and then she stopped, her face becoming serious, “and if this is my last chance to say it… Doctor…” But too late, the awaited alarm shrilled through the ship at an almost deafening volume.

They listened to the noises from above, the pounding feet and the shrill cries of “Fire!”

Seconds passed and then Jack and Nonny shot out of a disposal shoot a few feet away and jumped up.

The Doctor pulled Rose in and squeezed her tightly. “I'd trust Jack with my life, he’ll keep you safe, just remember the first rule and you’ll be okay?”

“What’s that, then… never wash a wok?”

“I’m serious… its 'don’t wander off'!”

“I’m not some teenager with no experience… been on enough missions…”

“Can we go?” Jack interrupted them. They exchanged one, brief kiss and took off in opposite directions.

“You just better be right about him!” hissed Pete as they let themselves into the ventilation shaft and began to head towards the Transporter room. Nonny had shown them where they should head for on plans she had drawn up over her long stay here.

*****************

Rose and Jack ran side by side with Nonny slightly in front of them.

“I hope you really do know what you’re doing?” she asked and he grinned cheekily at her.

“I think I do… I have to say, I thought when we got to this point, we might be armed, but, I suppose, it’s the Doctor’s orders…”

“You heard him; despite the fact that he actually abhors guns… there might seriously be something in the fact that they wouldn’t feel threatened by unarmed civilians in quite the same way! I can sense the Coral… she’s close!”

As she said this, Nonny came to a halt and pointed at a door. “Non-the growth room-ny!”

Jack looked up and down the corridor and moved quietly to the door, he pushed it open slowly, gently, and poked his head around it before nodding to Nonny and Rose that all was clear.

The Coral sat in the same blue fluid, wired to a machine that was making an incredible amount of noise. The Coral instantly began to sing inside Rose’s head and Nonny looked at Rose with a smile. “Non- she likes you very much my little Rose-ny?”

Rose approached the Coral with a small smile, “funny, it sort of gets to you after a while, like she belongs in my head, you know?” She reached over absentmindedly to stroke the Coral, but Jack intervened.

“Rose… I am under such strict orders! You are forbidden to touch her as a matter of life and death, you know that!”

“Yeah… I think he’s terrified I’m gonna go all Bad Wolf and kick their metal arses!”

“Bad what?”

“Oh, nothing, how do we do this then?”

“Nonny will move it…”

“Her… she’s a she…”

“Okay… Nonny…” Jack looked at Rose as if she were a little bit touched and spoke to Nonny without even a glance. Nonny moved towards the Coral and Rose sensed waves of communication between the two that made her bristle with an emotion she had never felt before.

The door blowing off its hinges was nothing compared to the scream that came from one of them, and the austere black Dalek that glided into the room at a speed it didn’t look capable of sent shivers coursing up their spines.

“Intruders… intruders… exterminate!” it screeched at top volume and it pulled about and aimed at Rose without even scanning her.

Nonny screamed loudly “No!” And then she took a dive between the line of fire; her body taking the impact of the Dalek’s shot. She crumpled to the floor, instantly dead and Jack let out a wail that befitted that of a mourning dog. The Dalek swung about to the sound of it and focused on him.

“Traitor!” It screamed, taking aim. Rose pulled back hoping that she would be missed, but Jack, began to talk quickly.

“You are mistaken, Geng… I bought Nonny here to eradicate the contamination… you have done away with her and my cry was purely with the frustration, for a reversal will be harder still without the antidote…”

“Less talk… you created a scene upstairs and sneaked in here… it is obvious... you cannot fool a Dalek!”

Rose saw Jack’s eyes twitching at the ceiling just above her. There was an opening hatch for the ventilation there and the Doctor was looking right at her, his finger on his lips.

Rose calculated that Jack was in mortal danger, that she needed to get the Coral or all was lost and that the Doctor just wanted her to climb up into the vent and slip quietly away with him and abandon the mourning and soon to be dead Jack. 

She knew there was no way she was ever going to do this.


	30. Chapter 30

He could tell that she was plotting just from the hesitation and his eyes were shouting no, screaming at her, to not do whatever she was planning to do. But, this was life and death and the being who had been as good as a mother lay dead on the floor before her and because of her. She wasn’t going to let them do any more damage. Anger filled her and the Coral sensed it, calling out to her.

“Dalek!” she shouted before it could exterminate Jack, and it swung around, surprised by the bold and familiar tone. 

“She is come!” You could tell from its projection that it was sending a signal out to its comrades as it glided towards her.

“Jack is no traitor… he brought me here, didn’t he? Is that how you reward a faithful servant… with extermination?”

“All non-Daleks will eventually be exterminated… he has had his use…”

The Doctor was still above them, anger and fear coursing through him and he could do nothing. For now.

“And now we have the ultimate weapon… you will continue the program Lupis…” As the Dalek talked, Rose was moving, inching her way around the room towards the Coral, her movements closely followed by both Jack and the Doctor.

“And if I refuse, Dalek… if the program is not to my liking… not in the interest of Earthkind… what will you do about it? See… you aren’t the only ones with an ultimate weapon… I have a secret… wanna hear it?” The Dalek didn’t respond, merely allowed its plunger to extend a little nearer to her. “One word… Doctor…” she whispered it, a small smile spreading across her face. The Dalek recoiled, not very visibly, but enough to give Rose a little more confidence. “Oh, you don’t like that, do you…? I know something you haven’t planted in my head… something that threatens everything you’ve been working at…”

“Daleks fear nothing…” it replied slowly, its apprehension quite evident. “The Doctor is not on this universe and Daleks do not fear the Doctor… Time Lords are no match to Daleks…”

“Keep saying it, and you might believe it…” Rose was inching ever closer to the now very distressed Coral and the Doctor suddenly realised exactly what she was planning. Without hesitation he swung down into the room and faced the Dalek. 

“Time Lords are no match to Daleks? I should say so…” The Dalek turned to him and scanned him. “What… can’t quite place me? Rose, move away from the Coral.” Rose didn’t move.

It was at this point that the remaining three Daleks made their entrance, taking in the contents of the room with much noise and the usual chants of exterminate.

Rose took a lunge towards the Coral and at the same time the Doctor produced something from his pocket.

“Rose!” he shouted as she stepped against the growth machine. Suddenly the whole thing began an even louder cacophony of noise and Rose was pulled to the Coral, which seemed to produce tendrilled shoots from nowhere that wrapped themselves around her, drawing her into it. She felt no pain as the Coral joined itself to her and her eyes fixed with the Doctor. Her mind reaching out to him, to try and explain, but he was in no state to receive them and pointed something towards the Coral, a buzzing blue light reflecting in Rose’s eyes.

The Daleks did nothing; they made no move to start shooting, all eyes and plungers were on Rose and what was happening to her.

The Coral, merged into her, comforted by her familiarity, and she couldn’t have stopped it if she had wanted to. Finally Rose and the Coral were combined. She stood before them covered in coral shoots and the blue liquid that it fed off, and she looked at the Daleks.

Jack moved to the Doctor's side, as far away from the four Daleks as was possible in that room. Nonny’s body still lay limp in the centre.

“I… Am… The… Bad… Wolf… I… Will… Destroy… All… That… Threatens… My… Doctor…” She raised her hand towards the four Daleks and paused. 

This was enough for the Daleks. They moved back and spoke as one. “Activate Emergency Temporal Shift!” And within a blink, they had all disappeared without leaving a trace.

Jack collapsed by Nonny, turning her now pale blue face to his as he wept, but the Doctor’s eyes remained on Rose as the Coral continued to grow around her. 

Rose made no movement. She merely gave herself over to whatever was happening and it seemed the Doctor wasn’t prepared to intervene in any way with this

Minutes ticked by, and the Coral grew all over Rose until she disappeared, buried in growing coral branches until the whole growth machine and Rose were just one enormous coral tree standing before them. It pulsed and throbbed, a warmth generating from it that even a non-telepath would sense and Jack lifted his head as he was showered in sympathetic waves of comfort.

Then everything went deafeningly silent.

“Doctor?” Jack asked, sitting up. “What’s happened… where's Rose?”

“Sshh!” hissed the Doctor. “Listen!” The two were quiet for a beat.

“Doctor!” The voice was distant, sounded like it was a few rooms away, but there was no mistaking who it belonged to. "Doctor!"

“You heard that right? It wasn’t in my head?”

“I heard it…” answered Jack, looking more and more perplexed.

The Doctor ran to the Coral, stroking all around it, obviously searching for something. He needn’t have bothered because almost as soon as he started, a doorway opened and Rose walked out, looking filthy and ruffled and just a little bewildered. “What the hell happened… I found myself inside this… it's bloody huge in there!”

“You didn’t listen…” 

“Yeah, I did, but I listened to the Coral too… we played a trick on them and they went, just like I said yesterday!”

“The Coral merged with you, Rose…”

“Euw… that sounds a bit rude… what does that mean exactly?”

“She…”

“Please… Nonny is dead… small-talk later… have some respect?” Jack's voice broke with his plea.

The Doctor knelt down by Nonny and checked her, made sure that as an insect life form she hadn’t put herself into some kind of chrysalis mode. He looked into Jack’s grieved face and shook his head. “I’m sorry... so sorry…” Jack nodded, fresh tears glistening his already swollen eyes.

Rose took in the scene, she had loved Nonny and then hated her and now… now all she could feel was a tremendous guilt, sided with the onset of a most terrible migraine.

As Jack mourned his partner, the Doctor saw Rose’s face, stood and gathered her into his arms, trying to comfort her.

“Doctor…”

“Sshh... come here…”

“My head… is killing me…”


	31. Chapter 31

Her eyes fluttered open and she had difficulty getting her bearings. The room was peaceful, quiet, the sheets clean and cool. She didn’t feel like doing anything but just lying there in that fuzzy place between consciousness and sleep but something was niggling at her.

“Doctor?” Her voice was low and she wondered if she had actually spoken out loud. She sat up on her elbows wondering if she were in a hospital but the room was so pretty and luxurious that she decided that it was unlikely. Maybe she had died and gone to heaven? No, heaven wasn’t here although it was very comfortable. Heaven was in her Doctor’s arms and she needed to know he was alright because she was struggling to remember how the last episode actually ended. “Doctor!” she called, her voice still weak, but a little louder.

The door opened and in walked Jackie Tyler with an arm load of towels, her eyes went to Rose and she gasped, dropping the white bundle to the floor. “You’re awake!”

“Yeah… where am I?” she could hear the gravel in her voice, knowing she needed a drink to parch the dryness of her throat. Jackie walked over to the bedside and poured a glass of water for her.

Rose’s hand wouldn’t work quite as she hoped and Jackie ended up having to cup the glass to her mouth. “You’re at the Mansion…” she said as she did all this. “It's fine, all's well, the Doctor is downstairs dealing with our guests…I’ll go and get him…”

“What happened?”

“Oh, Rose, I don’t exactly know… Pete arrived with a troupe of aliens, just appeared in the garden and disappeared again; only to bring back some more… then Jake turned up to help. There was a bit of a wait and the Doctor appeared with you in his arms, you were out cold. That was five days ago, we’ve had an awful lot to deal with, but the Doctor has hardly left your side… only reason he has now is because one of them is giving birth downstairs and they needed his experience…”

“Jack?”

“He didn’t come… he’s still up on the space ship… the Doctor has been keeping an eye on him too…” There was a silence as Rose digested this and Jackie smiled fondly at her, leaned down and smoothed some hair from her face. “You gave us all such a fright… thought we were gonna lose you… your Da…. Pete has been beside himself. The Doctor was the only one who seemed in control…” At this point the door swung open and the Doctor walked in, his eyes upon Rose as if he already knew she was conscious.

He sat beside her on the bed and took her hand. “Hello…” he said in such a soft, intimate tone that it made her stomach turn immediately.

“Hello…” she replied not knowing why tears were attempting to break from her eyes.

The Doctor turned to Jackie, “a boy, fine and healthy… you did well; it’s just that he was so big, she needed a bit of help… I’m sure she’d love you to see him…” Jackie’s face had lit up and she nodded.

“Yeah, I’ll leave you two alone… anything you need?” she asked at the last as her hand was upon the door knob.

“Could murder a cuppa?” croaked Rose and Jackie smiled, nodded and left, closing the door softly behind her.

The Doctor looked down at her, studying every feature of her pale face.

“Doctor…”

“Don’t fret. The Daleks have gone into hiding… they won’t be back for you… might be back for me at some point, but we’re getting that under control… Jack’s stayed on their ship, salvaging, but he needs some time… he’ll be fine… Nonny always requested a ceremony befitting her kind and he is making plans for this also. But he’s not far.”

“Nonny saved my life…”

“She did what any mother would have done.”

“She wasn’t really my mother, though was she?”

“As good as… she bought you up. Looked after you, kept you from becoming the monster they had hoped you’d be. She deserves your sorrow, Rose, not the coldness you seem to have about her…”

“She should have got me off there sooner; I mean I was just a child!”

“She didn’t know how… she just did what she knew best…” It was obvious that Rose had put shutters down about her relationship with Nonny some time ago and it was going to take some time to unravel her feelings upon it, so the Doctor didn’t say anymore on the matter. They said nothing for a few moments and then Rose looked puzzled.

“What happened?”

“It’s sort of hard to explain… what do you remember?”

“I remember Jack was going to be exterminated and you were right above me… the Coral was screaming and I knew I couldn’t leave it… I distracted the Dalek and then as the rest of them arrived I sort of found myself beside the Coral. After that, its like I was watching flash backs of a film… it wasn’t my memories I was seeing, but somebody else’s… that’s how I knew about the Daleks fear of the Bad Wolf… then it all goes a bit blurry from there…”

“You were amazing, Rose. I was so angry at you for taking that risk, but what you did… there are so many memories I have of the incredible things people have done, but this… oh, this is on another level…”

“But what did I actually do?”

“The timing was most fortunate; I do have to say… I mean there’s our precious girl sitting in a growth machine with the formula set into stasis so it wasn’t likely to have any affect, but as soon as the life form feeding the contaminant was eradicated, so to was the contaminant. It just so happens that as soon as you made contact with the Coral, the growth machine spurted into life… this caused a chain reaction that very few could have calculated…”

“But, I saw you, that blue light… the buzzing… you did something too!”

“I just helped the process along… made it all a little more comfortable for you… just used my Sonic…”

“Your what?”

“Sonic Screwdriver…” He produced it from his pocket and handed it to her. “Very useful… I didn’t bring much with me from... over there… but I just happened to have a couple of these on my person…”

“And what did it do exactly?”

“Weeeeell… this time it just allowed you a little bit of anesthetic, eased it all for you… would account for the headache and the sleepiness afterwards…”

“You overdosed me?”

“No! Overdose, that’s a bit strong… maybe I was a little overzealous on the dose... I was worried about you!”

“I’ve been out of it for five days, Jackie said!”

“Five and a half… you needed recovery time… it isn’t everyday a person merges with a Coral…”

“We merged?”

“Yep… that’s what the Coral has been after ever since she recognised you. Your DNA and your timeline. She saw Rose Tyler in you and she saw your own life, one that includes her.”

“I remember… it was… I was so strong… I could have done anything… and yet it was her all along using me to… grow. I found myself in a big room, and I walked down corridors and through other rooms for what seemed like ages until I heard you and Jack talking… then I found a door… where was I, Doctor?”

“You were in a TARDIS… a brand new fully grown TARDIS...”


	32. Chapter 32

Downstairs in the mansion you would have thought that forty extra guests might have caused chaos, that Jackie Tyler might have been doing her nut in as Pete had predicted, but it was all very civilised and everyone seemed to be mucking in accordingly. News of Nonny’s sacrifice had spread amongst them and as they went into mourning a sombreness settled upon the household. Only the new born Imspalina bought respite to the atmosphere that hung over the luxury home of the Tyler’s.

Rose had had enough bed rest by that evening and when she had waited too long for the Doctor to return, she took it upon herself to go and find him.

She came down the stairs and observed the group of creatures talking softly in a close group in the hall. They looked up as she paused on the stairs, a ripple stirring amongst them and Rose felt a coldness shoot up her spine as one of them turned away from her.

She found her way to the kitchen where Jackie was playing centre court and absolutely in her element. She was the hostess with the mostest and Rose waited quietly for her to finish cutting the cucumber sandwiches into neat little triangles. The dull murmur gradually stemmed as each being noticed her. She was beginning to feel decidedly uncomfortable.

“Rose, love, come here, sit down… you sure you’re allowed up?” Jackie bustled about making a space at the almost full table. It seemed that her tea was a success all over and six large pots sat steaming in the middle of the full table, making it look somewhat like a Mad Hatter’s tea party, which in retrospect, might have been bang on.

“So… I’m Public Enemy Number One around here, is that it?” Rose addressed the whole table, suddenly unable to take what she felt was the judging silence and Jackie swung back around in surprise.

“Rose!”

“Oh… it isn’t that, Miss Tyler… we are in awe of you… you fulfilled the prophecy… our secret prophecy… we don’t know whether to thank you or whether to worship you!” Nigel had been sitting there and was now wearing a smile that seemed to transform his still blue, but otherwise, now unrecognisable face.

“Well, do neither… I’m nothing special... just ordinary. Anyway, I don’t think that’s entirely true… that bug thing in the hall turned its back on me…”

“The Nimdool? That’s Jeanie; she feels she shouldn’t have the honour of looking upon you until she has rewarded your deeds, its part of Nimdool culture.”

“I don’t think you should be describing her as a bug thing neither…” added Jackie. “Bit offensive…”

“I thought you were angry at me cos of Nonny?”

“You didn’t kill Nonny.” Another person spoke up, he looked human, but Rose knew he probably wasn’t Earth born.

“I… I didn’t forgive her either…” Rose stumbled upon the words and all around, the table cooed sympathetically. “Where’s the Doctor?”

“With the new born, just checking him over… want to go and see?” Jackie’s hand was upon her arm and Rose felt a little annoyed at the way this woman seemed to understand her too easily.

“No… I… think I just need some air… is that okay?” She stumbled for the back door leaving a sea of confused faces.

The night air was chilly and as she stifled the tears that had almost threatened she sucked in great breaths of it, feeling it seep into her lungs and taking the nip off the tears.

She walked the back garden for a bit, enjoying the dark and trying to work out what her emotions were doing.

“Hello?” A voice rang out in the dark and she jumped, searching the shadows. Pete was sitting on a stone bench looking out into the darkness and had turned when he heard the sound of her deep breaths.

“Made me jump!” she said quietly, suddenly feeling awkward. He was the last person she needed to meet when she was suddenly feeling so emotional.

“Sorry, I’ve been out here hiding… the house is a little choc-a-block, I needed some air. You alright?”

“Yeah…” She reflected on what he said, seeing something of a similarity between them, then she quickly tried to dispel her thoughts because it was the beginnings of admitting something she wasn’t ready to admit.

“I was worried… we were all worried… you looked so ill…” Rose didn’t respond, so he continued. “I was sorry to hear about Nonny… she sounded like a good sort… died a hero’s death…”

“She didn’t have to!” Rose snapped, she knew she shouldn’t, but her inner emotions were starting to leak out and she wasn’t used to that at all.

“No, but some things are a given… she raised you, the Doctor said… of course she would lay down her life for you. Are you angry with her for that?”

“I’m not angry at her!” Rose’s voice cracked, tears were imminent and she knew that he could tell. She sat down heavily on the bench beside him and gulped in some air.

“It’s okay to be angry, Rose; you’ve every right to feel like this.”

“But she’s dead… how can I say the things I needed to say now?”

“It doesn’t matter… she… they… loved you, implicitly… would have laid down their lives for you… whether you wanted them to or not. They don’t need to forgive you because they loved you and vice versa.”

“I didn’t know how to love until I met the Doctor.”

“I don’t believe that, Rose, not for a minute. What you mean is, you never expressed it.”

“I’ve been so angry…”

“You had every right to be.” They sat quietly for a long while, taking in the chill darkness. Rose felt the emotion overwhelming her. The grief for both Nonny and her never to be known true mother finally hitting her. She sobbed softly by her father. He sat awkwardly for a while, not quite sure what was acceptable, but knowing he mustn’t let her down now. A tentative hand reached out and squeezed hers and she fell against him, grateful for the comfort. He put an arm around her shaking shoulders and let her weep into his chest, a deep burgeoning desire to protect her overwhelming him.

A few feet away, in the shadows just by the kitchen door, the Doctor observed the scene without intervening. As Pete comforted his daughter for the first time, he nodded and returned to the humbug of the busy kitchen where a game of twelve handed Trekken poker was just about to begin.


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _When a mirror is broken, not shattered, you can still see the reflection between the cracks. The images are distorted but the same._  
>  I wanted to explore the possiblities of dimensions, believing that everything would be identical in a parallel world and it would be the different circumstances that would shape the lives of the characters.  
> If something as simple as turning a different direction can alter the future, then what possiblities there are in this wonderful world that I borrow from the BBC and RTD!  
> This was the last chapter on this, but I now have an epilogue that I will post very soon!

“What happens next?” She was getting ready for bed and he was watching the night sky from the window.

“Next?”

“Yeah... how are we going to find homes for all these… people?”

“Oh, we will, one way or another… as soon as the TARDIS is ready we can take anyone who wants to go back to their home planets and the rest… well… Torchwood have been looking into a rehabilitation program for a while now… I’ve been trying to convince Pete that its time we welcomed our extra terrestrial neighbours instead of locking them up or shooting them or chasing them away! After seeing how well Jackie’s dealt with it, he’s finally agreeing with me.”

“Sounds like a major job opportunity?”

“Yeah, but not one either of us will be taking, well if that’s okay with you?”

“No?”

“No… these people here, these aliens if that’s what we’re going to call them… they’re pretty much harmless… but out there… there are four beings so dangerous that they threaten all of existence… somebody has to keep them in check…”

“And that’s gonna be you?”

“Us… you see Rose, we have the upper hand… I’m the Doctor and they think you’re the Bad Wolf…”

“But I’m not, am I?”

“No, that wasn’t what that was all about…you knew that…” He left the window and came and sat on the bed beside her, searching her face. “It _will_ be dangerous and there'll be times when we fear for each others lives… but... I know that along the way we’re going to see such wonderful things; have such wonderful adventures…”

“So we’re gonna become Dalek Hunters?”

“No… not hunters, that would make us no better than them. Trackers… we aren’t going to give them the chance to create the havoc they’re programmed to do… we’ll be breathing down their necks… once upon a time somebody said there was only one solution when faced with a Dalek and that was to just run… I won’t be that person. I feel a responsibility to this universe; they wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for…”

“Rose?”

“Well… in a way… yes… but there again neither would I, nor you come to that… she did so much more than we’ll ever know as the Bad Wolf… she sent you through the rift in Cardiff, you know…”

“Yeah… I know… I saw her do it when I was… merged… with the Coral…”

“What else did you see?”

“Lots… enough… I know what she was now, what he and her are to one another.”

“And?”

“She made the right choice… you’n me? We were made for one another… and she saw that all that time ago… set the whole thing going then. Not only that, she’s not like us… she’s different, she…”

“I know… I always suspected something. They’re a better match and so are we and I wouldn’t have it any other way…”

“So we spend the rest of our lives doing this? Dalek tracking? What happens when our bodies let us down, Doctor? When we’re too old to keep up with them… what happens when we’re no longer here to protect the universe?”

“I hope it isn’t our whole lives… no, eventually they should come a cropper at their own doing, stands to reason with all that violence grown into them… but if that is how it goes, well we just have to make sure we leave a legacy behind… train up the youngers to carry on…”

“Youngers? Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“The thing about a TARDIS, Rose, is that it is capable of travelling through time as well as space… we can do it all and be back in time for tea… by the time our children are ready to fight the good fight… to take up the gauntlet... they will have had a proper childhood and trained to defend the universe all at the same time.”

“Children?”

“Course… later on, when we’ve explored about a bit… you don’t want them?”

“I’ve never even thought about it… I mean, I’m thirty next year, time is ticking on…”

“Ah, you see one advantage of being bought up in Dalek custody, all your vitals are immaculate, pristine… and those four years you have from Rose… they count in a way… but like I said before, we could start a family tomorrow and still cover a life times exploring before you even showed!”

“Doctor…”

“But we don’t need to think about it now, do we?”

“Doctor…”

“It’s nice to practise…and I want you all to myself for a while… mind you there was something I wanted to pass by you before I ask him…”

“Doctor…” He stopped and listened which surprised her because he hadn’t let her get a word in for a while. (Well, other than his name, but he loved hearing her say it) “Ask me what?”

“Weeell… a TARDIS is a big old place…”

“So I discovered…”

“And past experience in another body tells me that a version of the three of us make a great team…”

“Doctor…”

“Jack’s useful, Rose and I really feel for him, I feel that we owe him in a way. He’s doing wonders up there with the salvage and the TARDIS is responding to him already… I just think, just for a while until his mourning is over…”

“Why would you think I’d say no?”

“Because, we’re a couple and you might not want him along?”

“That’s you, mate… if you think he’ll be better off with us then of course he must come if he wants… he has to sleep at the other side of the ship mind you?”

“Why would that be, then Rose?”

“You know exactly why!” She blushed a little and he grinned, the noise in his throat giving him away. “We can’t… not here!” she hissed as his tongue darted out.

“Why not here? No one'll hear... there’s a party going on down there... Tony's at the other side of the house fast asleep… we’re as good as alone…”

“What about…” He patted his pocket and shook his head and her face broke into a cheeky smile.

“One thing though… I have to know; just before I left you with Nonny and Jack you were going to tell me something…”

“Yeah… yeah, I was…” She paused, knowing that she had told him when they had made love, in the throes of passion and that he already knew. But she also knew that sometimes things needed to be said. “I love you.” There was no pause, no stammer and no tears. Just a frank and open expression, Rose being as honest and sincere as she could be, telling him exactly how she felt about him.

The group downstairs that had been exchanging stories about their home planets were now breaking into an ancient old song that had been carried down the centuries and one that they all had in common. It drifted up through the whole house, a beautiful background for such a romantic moment.

As this Doctor made love to this Rose in her parent’s house, he was overcome with something he didn’t think he had ever felt before in any body.

He belonged.


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the epilogue, the very last... thanks for reading! The last paragraph is a never before published addition to the original story... hope you like...

The Dalek ship looked very different from the previous time she had been there. She didn’t realise quite how hard she was gripping his hand until he squeaked. The dark gloomy passages were brightly lit and almost everything had been stripped out making it a huge empty space.

“What will they do with it now?”

“Well, this ship is incredible actually… turns out this was how they travelled through to this dimension via the void… it’s deactivated and I’ve got the crucial elements in the TARDIS, it won’t be going anywhere for a while. But it seems like such a waste… I mean look at the view!” He took her to a large window and she gasped as she looked down at the Earth below them.

“It’s beautiful!”

“It just seems so wrong to destroy this place and Pete came up with the idea… I wasn’t so sure but he has convinced me.”

“Oh?”

“It’s a massive piece of prime real estate… we think it would make a fantastic hotel…”

“What for holidays and that?”

“Well… yes, holidays… conferences… parties… the exterior could be used for satellites and astronaut training… that sort of thing… a relative spatial goldmine… as it were…”

“You cashing in on it… all that pain and hopelessness?”

“Not me… I don’t want... need… all I need is here!”

“Pete, then, a good opportunity arose and he thought he’d make some money off of it regardless to how anyone felt about it?”

“Not Pete, either, in the first place he wanted to rip it apart, blow it into a zillion pieces… but I couldn’t let him, just for the architecture alone… it’s a part of history now and when you think about it… that what it represents is history, that’s a good thing, it’s in the past. He made a flip comment about it making a brilliant hotel and it sort of ran away with us. Torchwood would own it because they will invest in it and maintain and run it. But any profit, well, that will be down to you.”

“Me?”

“You lost your childhood here, Rose… we’ll never get that back. But it seems only right that you should be the one who reaps any reward from its future.”

“But, I don’t want... need… all I need is here!”

“How did I know you were going to say that? Maybe you don’t need it, we don’t need it, but I’m sure you can think of someone who does…”

“I wasn’t the only one imprisoned here…”

“Now you’re getting it…”

“And what about all those other stolen babies who might still be alive… who helps them after years have gone by?”

“You are so Rose, you know?”

“I’m this Rose… and don’t you forget it!”

“Never will, never could… really don’t want or need to… can I tell you something?”

“What?”

“I love you.”

 

**************

 

“Rose?” Rose was in the room they had been using since they had come to stay at the mansion while it was full of her alien comrades. She jumped a little at Jackie’s voice.

“Jackie!”

“Sorry, I should have knocked… I just wanted to have a little… come and see you before… are you avoiding me?”

“What?”

“You always seem to be leaving the room as I come in… I mean we seemed to hit it off so well at first and now… I dunno… it’s like… did I do something… say something?”

“No. It's fine, Jackie, honestly… I’ve just been busy with all the arrangements and that… so have you…” Rose made a fair attempt at pretending, but she avoided Jackie’s eyes and besides, Jackie knew her too well, even though she barely knew her at all.

“So, I’m not the woman who gave birth to you… what of that? I mean we are the same flesh and blood… you can’t deny it. I want to know you, Rose. I loved my daughter… love my daughter. But honestly, I have feelings for you too… my heart broke when I discovered what had happened to you….”

“I’m not a pity case… I’ve been on my own long enough, I don’t need…”

“I don’t believe you have no feelings for me… honestly, I think sometimes you’re angry at me, but most of the time… what’s the word? Wistful… yeah… wistful. What’s stopping you just becoming my friend, Rose? You seem to be doing well enough with Pete now.”

“It’s different.”

“Why is it so different?” Rose didn’t answer straight away. She continued to pack the little bag she had with the few things she and the Doctor had in the room.

“You have a daughter… you love her… I mean, suppose I did let you in… suppose I slipped into being your daughter. Rose Tyler with two living parents, just suppose that… then what if she managed to come back? What would you do?”

“She won’t… she can’t…” Jackie’s voice cracked at the last and Rose looked at her sharply, wondering if the words needed to be said.

“But what if she did, by some stroke of luck?”

“I can’t deny I’d pleased to see her… I’d love to see her… but that doesn’t alter you and me.”

“But it does… I can’t be a make do… a second best… I won’t be. That’s just not fair.”

“Good grief, Rose, I don’t see you as her! I have more than one child; I’m capable of loving another!”

“Loving?” Rose repeated the words dumbly, dropping a jacket she was folding into the bag.

“That is what this is about, a mother’s love…” Tears swam in Rose’s eyes. It would seem that all the new people in her life were going to push her to every extreme.

“I never had a mother. Nonny, she was the closest thing and she… well, you know what happened?”

“Yeah, she sounds like she was very brave. I would have liked to have met her.”

“Really… do you know, I think you two would have really got on? In a way, you remind me of her, but I suppose that was fabricated by them as well, when I think of it…”

“That doesn’t matter though… she was a brave loving person who made the ultimate sacrifice to save your life. If you see me in that, then I'm flattered. So, in answer to your hypothetical question, if Rose ever did make it back here, I’m not saying it wouldn’t be a bit awkward at first… but you two would sort of know each other. You’d get on too. I wouldn’t turn my back on you. The truth is, as soon as I heard about you I was your mother. Couldn’t help myself. So there you have it, you can push me away, run off with the Doctor and forge ahead. Or you can let us happen, like I want and like I’m sure deep down you want. Doesn’t have to be immediate, gradual, I can do. I just wanted to clarify what was actually happening between us.”

“Okay.” Rose sat down heavily on the bed, stunned by Jackie’s straightforwardness.

“Okay? Okay what?”

“You win, but don’t expect me to call you Mum and love and hugs and all that… but yeah... alright, I suppose I could have a worse stepmother…" Rose was floundering a bit because she knew she was letting go of the little ball she had wound up inside herself.

“Right, I’ll go and put the kettle on… make a nice brew, yeah?” Jackie’s face was so lit up and her smile so wide, Rose felt a little worried by the transformation in her. In truth, Jackie was holding back a gallon of tears that she shed all the way back to the kitchen where she washed her face and got on with it before anyone rumbled her.

 

*************

The TARDIS stood proud as Rose and the Doctor carried in the last few boxes and bags. They hadn’t emptied the flat; it was their first home if only for a couple of days. They both knew they would never need it again, but sentimental reasons made them keep it, just in case.

They had said their good byes to their new family down on Earth and Pete’s selected team were readying themselves to transport up to begin the refurbishment of the new, as yet unnamed, hotel.

It was only Jack who was there with them, helping a little, and looking a little spare.

He had refused, not wanting to let go of his surroundings, his memories. And eventually the Doctor had accepted this. Now he wondered if he had made the right choice.

They were lovely people, Rose and the Doctor. And the TARDIS was just the most fantastic machine he had ever had the privilege to work with. He kind of liked the cheeky way she got in his head and played with him. He would miss her presence.

The whole place was empty, nothing remained and he had had a feeling of not belonging for weeks.

He missed Nonny, but he knew she wouldn’t have wanted him to waste an opportunity like this. Maybe he would find a way back home as they had promised who ever wanted they would? Now he was finding hard to say he had changed his mind.

The couple were so in love he really didn’t want to play gooseberry. But with the young TARDIS about he knew that there was always going to be a fourth for company.

“Right, that’s the lot!” The Doctor was standing right by him looking pensive.

“Made me jump!”

“You were miles away…”

“Yeah… fifty first century as it happens…”

“Why don’t you change your mind? We don’t want to leave you here… there’s nothing for you now...”

“Doctor I…”

“This ship needs a good engineer, you have a way with her… we really need someone… why not you?”

“I…” it was a strangled, emotional sound. Panicking inside, knowing that going would be stepping away from the life he had had and therefore ending it even though death had already ended it.

“Well… if you ever change your mind… just give us a shout, we’ll be back…” The Doctor was obviously too excited to stop around trying to convince someone who he believed didn’t want to join them and he made for the open TARDIS door before Jack could get anything more out.

The door slammed shut and the engines picked up. Jack watched on in a stunned paralysis as the ship began to dematerialise.

Then she was gone and he was all alone on the empty vessel, his mouth opening and shutting like a goldfish.

But before he had even had a chance to let out a breath the noise returned and so too, very gradually, did the ship.

The door creaked open and Rose poked her head out.

“Did he tell you… it also travels in time?” she asked with a wink and stood back from the doorway.

He took one last look about him and with his first smile since his sad loss, he ran inside that machine without looking back.

 

***********

_As Pete got together the latest blue prints for the new hotel in the sky, he glanced at the name thinking of the brave people that had been involved in acquiring it. All of them had shown such valour, faced up to those Daleks in their own way... so the name he had taken so long in finding was very befitting as a tribute to them, living or not. As He gathered up the stack, he didn't notice the sheet that was left behind. He smiled to himself as he left the office, wondering what Rose and the Doctor would think of the name when they returned to visit. The door shut and the sheet fluttered in the empty room, the letters at the top almost shouting out in their boldness. Just seven letters... harmless, most would think... most..._

_As we leave this tale behind we're treated to a close up of these seven harmless letters and left to our own thoughts about what they might mean._

_These seven letters read:_

_**VALIANT...** _


End file.
